Exceeding expectations

Sue Epstein, one of the volunteers who coordinate a massive annual adopt-a-family program in Costa Mesa, prepared for famine but got a feast this year.

She thought the ailing economy would drive down donations to Share Our Selves, a local charity, making it impossible for them to give toys, food and clothing to all of the area families in need.

Each year the charity asks local schools to submit lists of low income families complete with detailed profiles of the families (how many kids they have, what the kids want for Christmas, why they are in the financial situation they’re in).

“Originally we told the schools to submit 1,200 families this year because we were so concerned we wouldn’t get the donors,” Epstein said as she stood in the middle of a huge exhibition hall filled with cardboard boxes containing provisions and marked with family names.

But this year’s donations far exceeded their expectations, as the charity provided for 1,407 families — about 50 more than last year — while other local organizations saw a big drop in support.

Epstein attributes it to the intimate nature of the adopt-a-family program. Each family’s story is presented to the person or company that wants to “adopt” them along with a specific list of the gifts they hope to get. This lets the donors know exactly where their gifts are going and reassures them that they will be appreciated, as opposed to programs that just ask people to drop presents in a donation bucket, Epstein said.

A long line of cars, trucks and vans waited in the parking lot of the Orange County fairgrounds on Thursday to drop off their contributions.

Mary Haugen, chief executive of Costa Mesa company Med Provider Systems Inc., which handles billing for physical therapists, pulled up with a couple of employees in a red minivan filled to the brim with dozens of large cardboard boxes. Usually Haugen sends gifts to the physical therapists the company works with during the holidays, but this year she decided to adopt two large families and provide gifts for them in the therapists’ names.

Jill Brock, who came along to help, was awed by the scope of the operation.

“This is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Brock said as she watched a group of volunteers wheel about a dozen brand new bikes into the giant warehouse.

Costa Mesa High School sophomore Erik Becerra took the day off school with a group of classmates to collect, move and organize the donations. The school gave students with good grades a break from their classes as a reward, Becerra said. Other local organizations and after school programs such as Save our Youth also brought kids to help with the task.

Becerra was awed by how nice some of the gifts were.

“The cool thing is that people bring new bikes for kids. I mean, who doesn’t want a bike? I have a bike, but it’s not as cool as the ones they’re bringing in,” Becerra said.

Manfred Schuller and Randy German work at the laboratory at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian. All of the lab workers have pitched in to buy gifts for the program for years and the men drove up with a full van.

“It’s great to be able to do something for people,” German said.