Charities

A single mother of three had barely enough money to pay for a cut-rate bag of groceries at the Adopt-A-Neighbor food program. Then she spied a sign describing the fund-raising drive for the food bank and reached back into her purse for her last dollar, handing it to program director Kathryn McCullough. "She said, 'Keep that, I want to make sure you can keep on feeding people like me,' " said McCullough, who also sits on the Lake Forest City Council.

To encourage safe revelry by the Class of 1996, the City Council has thrown its support behind "safe, sane and sober" graduation night celebrations in June at El Dorado and Valencia high schools. City staff members recommended that the council authorize a $800 donation to each school. Council members surpassed that, voting to make the donation $1,000 for each school. The council also authorized a $1,000 grant to the AIDS Walk Orange County fund-raiser.

The city and its employees have been honored for a campaign that raised $22,000 for several charitable organizations. The Southern California section of the Combined Health Appeal of California presented the Best City Campaign award to Fullerton and named Denise Matson, administrative analyst for the city's Maintenance Services Department, Best Public Sector Coordinator. Matson coordinated the campaign, and employees donated the money.

Christmas Eve in Aspen, Colo., and Andrea Jaeger will be alone, sitting by the phone, willing it not to ring. Kids don't die on this night, do they? "There are times I just have to be by myself," Jaeger said. "This is one of them." Christmas Eve in Aspen, and Jaeger will have the heat turned down in her cramped mountainside home to save money. The air will chill her pizza, maybe harden her toothpaste, and only amplify that phone. Somebody will call with good news tonight, won't they?

In this season of giving, more California retailers are creating or expanding non-traditional philanthropic programs, raising their corporate profiles and their profits. Companies tend to make donations of money to causes--particularly during the holiday season. But recent polls show that companies generate more goodwill when they're directly involved in communities. Gap Inc. is among the growing number of retailers with community action programs.

If the spirit of giving strikes you over the holidays, the Web is an excellent place to search for and evaluate charities. A good place to start is the Better Business Bureau's Web site at http://www.bbb.org, which publishes financial reports on numerous charities, including how much of the money they collect actually goes to the causes they support. The Better Business Bureau site also lists addresses and phone numbers of the charities included in its site.

Nearly 800 needy parents in the county are receiving food, blankets, clothes and toys to provide a special Christmas for their children this year. Four charity groups are organizing the annual giveaway, which began this week. The families, chosen by school officials, have been invited to visit the Fullerton Interfaith Emergency Service distribution center at Maple School in Fullerton to pick up the goods.

A C-5 transport plane is scheduled to take off from Riverside's March Air Force base Monday with a cargo of Spanish-language textbooks for Guatemalan schoolchildren. The project is the proud achievement of SoundAid, a 9-year-old nonprofit group based in Laguna Beach that is dedicated to helping children in Latin America. "This is the biggest project we've done so far," said Richard Carroll, a Laguna Beach psychologist who helped found the organization.

The director of fiscal services for the San Bernardino City Unified School District was charged Monday with embezzling more than $100,000 from a charity fund that paid for medical, dental and eye care for poor students. If convicted, Shirlee Lowe, 52, faces up to seven years in state prison, said Sylvia Husing, a San Bernardino County deputy district attorney.