SANTA ANA : Savvy Spirit Invades Needy Minnie Street

Toward the end of an 80-foot queue that had formed on Minnie Street on Wednesday, Mario Flores, 11, waited eagerly for the only toy he would receive for Christmas.

“My mother is not going to buy me any toys because I’m big,” Mario said. “She’s only going to get them for my brother and sister.”

Mario hoped to pick up a stuffed animal for his sister as well.

Mario was among perhaps 300 children and parents who lined up as part of a holiday tradition aimed at helping residents of Minnie Street, one of the county’s most impoverished areas. The gift-giving effort, sponsored annually by a Century High School club known as Savvy, for Santa Ana Volunteers, began at noon as dozens of students handed out toy cars, teddy bears, games and food--apples, oranges and potatoes.

Shirley Bebereia, club adviser and founder of the Minnie Street project, dressed as Santa Claus and helped distribute the gifts. “In the 15 years I’ve been doing this,” she said, “I’ve never seen the poverty (so bad).”

“Poverty hurts all year, but for the little ones, they know what Christmas is and they don’t understand” when they receive nothing, Bebereia said.

Bebereia said that helping the families of Minnie Street is “the spirit of Christmas.”

Waiting for gifts of food and toys for her own family, Guadalupe Cortez, 23, said through an interpreter: “This is very good. We wouldn’t have a good Christmas without it. . . . I wish they could come every day.”

Bebereia said the school collects and distributes food and clothes to the poor all year and that donations are welcome, especially donations of clothes for children ages 6 to 12. Donations may be brought to Century High School, 1401 S. Grand Ave., or sent there, in care of Shirley Bebereia.