Putting Bright Face on Easter for Kids Away From Home

ORANGE —  It began like Easter morning in a million other homes. There were baskets of candy, Easter egg hunts, young girls in frilly dresses and a big-eyed, 2-year-old boy in a snappy sports coat.

But this wasn’t a typical home. This was Orangewood Children’s Home, where 185 youngsters, as young as 2 days and as old as 17 years, had to celebrate the holiday apart from family and loved ones.

Orangewood, which accepts as many as 3,000 children a year, is where Orange County authorities place abused and neglected youngsters for their own protection.

“These kids are pretty much detached,” Tim Hu said as he prepared hamburgers on a grill in the commons area at Orangewood. “We want to make sure they have some pleasant memories.”

Hu and Carlos Olivares, final-year students at Western State University College of Law in Irvine, organized Sunday’s Easter festival.

The two law students held a toy drive for Orangewood children last Christmas and decided that their law school should become involved as well.

“There’s always a knock on lawyers. There are always lawyer jokes,” said Olivares, 37-year-old father of four. But it took little persuasion for campus groups, students, faculty and the school administration to respond to the call, donating money and showing up Sunday to visit with the children, hide eggs and grill hamburgers.

“We hope to start a tradition at the school where every year Western State sort of adopts Orangewood” youngsters at Easter, Olivares said.

The children seemed to appreciate the effort. They took turns romping in an inflated rubber playroom, searching for hidden Easter goodies, munching barbecued lunches and delighting to a roaming clown and magic show--thanks to the generosity of Western State benefactors and donations from local businesses.

Licking the barbecue sauce from her fingers, a 12-year-old girl talked about life away from her family.

“We’d always have Easter egg hunts,” recalled the freckle-faced child, who over the past year has lived in, besides Orangewood, a group home, another public facility and also with a relative.

“I don’t want my kids going through the same heartaches I’m going through,” said the girl, whose name is being withheld to protect her privacy.

By mere appearances, it was impossible to distinguish this crowd of bright-faced toddlers and teens from any group of more fortunate children.

There are few tears shed by the youngsters at Orangewood, according to Rick Bazant, community program specialist. Despite their ages, or maybe because of it, the children seem remarkably resilient, he said.

Nevertheless, days like Sunday put their emotions to the test.

“During the holidays is when these kids really need this one-on-one attention,” Bazant said.

Being apart from their parents is an emotional toll for children of any age.

“If they don’t want to talk to the father who was involved in a molestation, they don’t have to,” Bazant explained. “But you get the other end of the spectrum too. . . . They still want to go home with mom even though mom may have known what was going on and mom wasn’t protecting them. It wasn’t mom’s fault, in the eyes of the children.”

In the toddlers’ wing of Orangewood, some of the 33 Western State volunteers visited with 1- and 2-year-olds as they finished lunch at miniature wooden tables.

Ethelyn Bernstein, a Western State receptionist and mother of two grown children, helped a 23-month-old, brown-eyed boy remove his sports coat, then watched as he devoured his hamburger and fries.

“They are adorable children,” Bernstein said. “It’s just sad they have to go through this.”