HEARTS of the CITY / Exploring attitudes and issues behind the news : A Valuable Lesson on the Spirit of Giving : Westside man plays Santa by raising funds and buying gifts for South-Central school.

Raymond Avenue Elementary School is barely two blocks from the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues made famous during the 1992 riots. Wrought with sadness and frustration after the violence, dozens of people from across the country gave money and volunteered time to the school.

But today, 3 1/2 years later, no one calls Raymond Avenue to offer help.

No one except Christopher Keith.

Keith is a Westside animation supervisor who wanted to help students stay in school. He chose Raymond Avenue simply because it was the closest campus.

Last Christmas season, he coaxed $2,200 in donations from friends, relatives and co-workers, and bought educational toys and books for two classrooms at Raymond Avenue.

The aim: to inspire the children to stay in school through gift incentives and to show them that people outside their neighborhoods care about them.

Last Wednesday, to the delight of teachers and students, Keith made his second Christmas visit to Raymond Avenue, laden with 318 wrapped gifts for children--this time in seven classrooms.

“I see people in this city becoming more compartmentalized, more isolated from one another,” he said.

“If we don’t go out and do something with the money we have to give, we’re going to be in trouble. It has to happen on a grass-roots level.”

Youngsters from Raymond Avenue were not thinking about grown-up problems when Keith and his helpers arrived with hundreds of gifts. They squirmed in their seats, their eyes widening, as Keith talked about the presents he had brought.

Five-year-old Elsa Golvado, grinning through two missing front teeth, hopped up and down in her seat, her brown hair flopping.

Moments later, blue and gold wrapping lay in clumps around her and the kindergartner leafed through her copy of “The Hungry Caterpillar,” the hardcover book each member of her class had received.

First-graders also got books, while second- and third-graders received soft multicolored construction toys. Fourth- and fifth-graders strummed new string instruments that came with special sheet music to guide untrained fingers.

“This is so cool,” said third-grader Marquis Perkins, dashing around the classroom playing with new toys. “I’m not going out to recess today. I’m going to stay in this classroom forever.”

In all, one-third of Raymond Avenue’s 1,000-plus students received gifts totaling $6,000. (One of Keith’s co-workers and his daughter spent the better part of three days wrapping the gifts.)

Keith, who played a lean Santa Claus in a red sweater and blue jeans, said he hoped in coming years to give gifts campuswide, and then expand to other schools in South-Central Los Angeles.

In 1994, when he started what he calls the South Central Santa Fund, Keith planned to donate food and clothes to Raymond Avenue students. He called the school for advice.

Yes, such essentials were always in short supply in poor households, Principal Victor Kimbell said. But what the children really needed, he said, were toys--they needed to feel more like children sometimes.

Some children come to school hungry, teachers said last week. Some miss school because they have to baby-sit younger siblings. One teacher estimates that one in seven students in her class will get no presents during the holidays because of lack of money.

Keith’s presents, coupled with the stay-in-school message, made a strong impression on youngsters, teachers said.

“A lot of kids’ parents don’t value education,” said Kimberly Edwards, a first-grade teacher. “For this message to come from outsiders is so important.”

And, for her students, who are all black or Latino, white visitors such as Keith are rare in their neighborhoods.

“For them to see white people smiling at them and offering to help instead of putting them in jail, this is just so important,” Edwards said.

Keith and those who helped organize and distribute gifts admitted they, too, needed more contact with Angelenos in neighborhoods outside their own on the Westside.

“We have no reason to come here, other than this,” said Chris Gaynor, Keith’s brother-in-law, an accountant who lives in Pacific Palisades.

Certainly, messages of sharing were not lost on Raymond Avenue’s students.

“These men are so nice to come and give out things to everybody,” said Jamila Ambrose, 6. “If I have extra presents one day, I want to put them in a bag and give them to someone.”

The Beat

Today’s centerpiece is the story of how one Westside man, driven by the frustration he felt after the riots in 1992, created the South Central Santa Fund to aid one elementary school.

For information about the program, write to P.O. Box 491250, Los Angeles, CA 90049, or call (310) 581-3252.