GOOD DEEDS; VALLEY PEOPLE OBSERVE HOLIDAY.

Byline: Robert Monroe Staff Writer

Kelli Armstrong and her mother, Leilani, prepared for their Thanksgiving feast - dashing from market to market looking for collard greens.

Barbara and Rex Moss came to the Valley from Carson City, Nev., to cook for her mother in Sherman Oaks, who was unable to make the annual holiday dinner for herself because of a heart attack.

Chuck Holliday began his celebration of Thanksgiving at a feast for the homeless by pulling his own plastic foam coffee cup, pocked by tooth marks around the rim, out of a plastic bag and helping himself at Panorama Full Gospel Church.

In many guises and venues, the Valley celebrated an early Thanksgiving Wednesday not only with food but with re-enactments of the first celebration and craft-making festivities at local schools.

Many of the events were geared toward raising money or collecting food for the poor and homeless - and that did not go unnoticed by at least one man who has lived on the streets or in trucks on and off for the last 30 years.

``There's more people helping out now than there was 20 years ago. Back then, not very many people worried about the homeless,'' said Ronald Koper, 65, who had an early dinner of turkey and all the trimmings at the Panorama City church.

The church hosted nearly 50 needy and homeless men, women and children at the second annual feast, sponsored by the San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission.

For many homeless people, the week around Thanksgiving Day represents a chance to take advantage of holiday-related feasts meant for them every day. Koper was at two dinners for the homeless last weekend and plans to go to three more today, Friday and Saturday.

But Derwin Thomas, a resident of the Valley Shelter in North Hollywood, thought the largess should not end when the holiday season does.

``It should be a giving time at all times,'' the 44-year-old said.

The rescue mission gave the needy men and women canned goods to take with them and, as a bonus, they could take toiletry packages assembled by Girl Scout Bojana Zdraljevic, an 18-year-old who emigrated from Yugoslavia to the Valley with almost no possessions in 1991.

``We had a home but we were displaced,'' said Zdraljevic, a Reseda resident who lobbied hotels and other businesses to donate to her cause. ``I always empathize with anyone who's had a plight like that.''

Last-minute shoppers jammed grocery store aisles looking for the final pumpkin pie or the last container of Cool Whip.

The Mosses needed only a few bottles of wine and a throw-away baking tray at a Van Nuys Albertson's store. Luckily, that gave them access to the express line.

``I was happy it wasn't worse,'' Moss said as she surveyed shoppers lined four- and five-deep at the check stands.

Armstrong, who finally found the collard greens and relative calm at a Ralphs down the street, said she wasn't always a procrastinator.

``Since I've had my children, I've become a last-minute shopper,'' the 28-year-old said.

Elsewhere around the Valley:

Students at the Harold M. Schulweis Valley Beth Shalom Day School baked sweets and made holiday-themed crafts in preparation for the holiday. The event culminated a schoolwide food drive to benefit the Los Angeles Mission.

The Valley Interfaith Council invited senior citizens to dinners in Pacoima and Sylmar.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1 -- 2) Above, needy and homeless men, women and children come to an early Thanksgiving dinner served Wednesday. The free feast sponsored by San Fernando Rescue Mission was held at the Panorama Full Gospel Church in Van Nuys. Left, Sean Morse of Ventura County Rescue Mission serves up a hot Thanksgiving meal at the Valley rescue mission site.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer