Barrage of Food, Gifts Helps Military Families : Donations: Tons of goods have poured in to El Toro base to help those left behind by deployed troops.

EL TORO —  When Marine Sgt. Torrence Brewer was deployed to the Persian Gulf nearly six months ago, he left behind a wife, a newborn daughter and a second job that had doubled his monthly income.

With the family monthly income cut from about $1,000 to roughly $500, Brewer’s wife, Jacqueline, was hard-pressed to pay her bills and buy baby formula and diapers for their daughter, Latisha, who was born the day her dad left 5 1/2 months ago.

But because of an enormous outpouring of support from schools, churches, businesses and individuals, Jackie Brewer and more than 1,000 other Marine spouses have enough formula, diapers, food and other household items to help make ends meet.

Since deployments to the Persian Gulf began last summer, the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station has benefited from a steady stream of unsolicited donation drives that have helped keep an ample stock of canned and dry goods, infant products and other household items in a base warehouse that serves as a relief center for financially strapped military families.

“The support we’re getting has been phenomenal,” said Maj. John L. Sayre, director of the base Family Services Center.

The combination of the high cost of living in Orange County and the typically low salaries of enlisted personnel and reserves has forced many El Toro and Tustin Marine families to seek help at the base food bank, which is open to enlistees, reservists and their dependents.

“Your typical Marine comes here from a (base) like Cherry Point, N.C., and is used to paying $200, $250 for a two-bedroom apartment, and then comes out here and finds that the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment is $850,” Sayre said. “Eighty-two percent of enlisted Marines (at El Toro) had second jobs.”

Sayre said that although there are no “destitute” families living on either base, the sudden loss of a second income has proven an enormous hardship for many dependents of Marines. With salaries of enlisted personnel averaging about $16,000 a year, most are forced to take jobs as security guards, restaurant workers or whatever sort of work they could drum up to support their families.

Although Marines’ salaries are too low to comfortably support a family in Orange County, they are also too high for families to qualify for food stamps and most other assistance. And because the armed forces are prohibited from actively soliciting donations or volunteers, Sayre said the Marines must rely on kindhearted people to come forward and help close the gap.

Since the deployment began--and especially since the start of the Gulf War--Sayre said there has been no shortage of donations. About 5,000 pounds of foods, beverages, household good, diapers, formula, toiletries and other items have come into the base food bank each week. Enough donations have come in, in fact, that the food bank extended its operation from two hours a day twice a week to 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“We’ve been getting tons of food,” said Staff Sgt. Malcolm Daggett of the Family Services Center. “It (the warehouse stock) was getting pretty low, but now it’s very much picked back up. . . . It’s been an incredible response.”

On Friday, volunteers of Operation Assist, a collection drive started at schools in Newport Beach, Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach, dropped off several vanloads of supplies for the food bank during its weekly delivery.

“People have come up with some creative things,” said Terry Hardison, a parent who organized Operation Assist at Top of the World Elementary School in Laguna Beach. “And people have shopped for things, they’re not just clearing out their pantries. . . . It’s really the only thing we can do as civilians in a tangible way right now.”

Hardison’s sister, Karen Parker, a parent at Harbor View Elementary School in Corona del Mar, said she launched Operation Assist when she called the El Toro base to find out how she could help the war effort. Told that Marine families were in need of food and other basic items, Parker enlisted seven schools, the Newport Beach Police Department, the Balboa Bay Club, FHP Inc. and radio station KWIZ-FM in the collection effort.

“It’s just now starting to catch on,” Parker said. “We’ve been taking supplies over (to the base) every Friday, and now other schools are starting up so (the base) can have a supply they can rely on. . . . We’re going to get the warehouse all organized and stocked so it looks like a grocery store, so families can go in and pick up what they need.”

“We’re sort of, like, taking part in the war,” said Matt Hoyt, 12, a sixth-grader at Harbor View who helped unload the donations. “It sort of feels good, like we’re helping (the soldiers) win it.”

In addition to supplies brought in by Operation Assist, Sayre said donations have included overstocked items from supermarkets, free services from a variety of businesses, gift certificates from restaurants and individual contributions.

“Believe it or not, we got a donation from one little old lady who had too many tomatoes in her garden,” Sayre said.

Aside from helping military families with day-to-day needs, Sayre said the donations are valuable because it eases one of the many worries of troops deployed in Saudi Arabia.

“This really helps with the war effort,” he said. “If Marines know their families are being taken care of back home, their morale is high overseas.”

Jackie Brewer, a Marine herself until last April, said that while she doesn’t enjoy the necessity of visiting the food bank--”I feel like I’m on welfare”--she said that the sight of boxes filled with donations and the efforts of the Family Services Center has buoyed her spirits.

“They’re wonderful--Sgt. Daggett, he’s been real good to me,” said Brewer, 21. “I think (the donation drive) is great. It’s great how everyone has pulled together.”

Individuals or groups can make donations by calling the base Family Services Center at (714) 726-2771.

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