READERS HELP GET HOME FOR NICE KIDS.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

Odds and ends from around the Valley:

Before I left on vacation last week, I brought you up to date on the young Midkiff sisters and how Irene Server, the presiding administrative law judge for the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board's office in Pasadena, and the Tarzana-Encino Rotary Club were closing in on finding a real home for them.

The girls - ages 8, 11 and 12 - have been living with their grandmother in a Sepulveda Boulevard motel room for more than a month now, waiting for a Van Nuys area apartment whose management would accept the Section 8 housing voucher the city had given them.

Low vacancy rates and higher rents in the Valley have made the federal vouchers all but useless for needy families, because few landlords accept them anymore.

All Server and the Rotary Club needed was a little help in raising the $1,250 security deposit on a small Van Nuys rental home whose owner was willing to take a Section 8 voucher.

Well, you guys came through with flying colors for some great kids who have been spending six hours after school each day doing their homework and helping out the staff at the Van Nuys library before taking the bus home to their motel room.

``We now have the security deposit- plus,'' Server said Monday, adding that extra donations - a few hundred dollars - are being held in a separate account administered by the Rotary Club for the girls.

``More than 50 people sent money and gift certificates, and we had many other offers of furniture and clothing for the girls and their grandmother when they're moved in, which hopefully will be before Christmas,'' she said.

One cash donation came from InSoon Lee of West Hills, and it goes a long way in showing how these random acts of kindness tend to grow on each other.

Last June, I wrote about Lee, a 63-year-old retired medical lab technician who lost $81 in a local supermarket.

He took a long shot and went back to the market, all the while figuring there was no one in this town honest enough to turn in found cash - but he was wrong.

Someone had - a retired teacher named Nancy, who told me she didn't want her last name used because she didn't want or need the publicity.

Lee offered to give her half the money, but she wouldn't take a dime.

``She told me to give the money to someone who really needed it, or do a good deed for someone someday,'' Lee said.

Well, someday for someone came last week. Lee called Server and told her he was sending along $81 for the Midkiff sisters.

``While I was on the phone with her, my wife slipped me a note, saying make it $100, so I did,'' Lee said.

Server said so many readers sent along notes with their donations, saying how important it is, especially after Sept. 11, for people to reach out to help each other.

I'll let you know when the Midkiff sisters and their grandma finally move out of a motel and into a real home.

If you've got an extra $15 lying around and want to help out some local starving artists, stop by the Arts Council's Holiday Benefit Night at 5 o'clock Wednesday.

OK, so maybe the artists who will benefit from the money raised at this event - students in the music, drama and theater departments at California State University, Northridge - aren't actually starving, but they sure can use the financial help.

``We turn the money over to each department, and the professors select deserving and needy students for a scholarship,'' said Katherine Melke, president of the Arts Council.

The benefit event will begin at the Northridge home of Dean and Jerri Rose, 19426 Roscoe Blvd., where Jerri has assembled an extensive Victorian doll collection that includes some life-size dolls she has made of fired porcelain.

At 7 p.m., the party will shift to Jackie and Bruce O'Reilly's Chatsworth home, 1000 Rudnick Ave., for a full-course dinner.

From 6 to 8 p.m, Chatsworth Florist, at 21727 Devonshire St., will donate 10 percent of all sales to the benefit night.

For more information, call Melke at [phone].

And, finally, the Winter Concert of the San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra - supporters of the United States Marines' Toys for Tots drive - will begin at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Pierce College Performing Arts Theater.

New, unwrapped toys will be collected at the concert. For more concert information, call [phone].