VAN NUYS FAMILY BRINGS EASTER JOY TO NEEDY KIDS.Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
The kids from the neighborhood will show up at Clancy's place today all scrubbed and clean, ready to sit down for a nice, hot Easter dinner. If it weren't for the ragged rag·ged adj. 1. Tattered, frayed, or torn: ragged clothes. 2. Dressed in tattered or threadbare clothes: a ragged scarecrow. 3. clothes on their backs, Clancy says, they'd look like every other kid in this city going to Easter dinner with his parents. But these children are not that lucky. They were born into families barely getting by - families that come to Clancy's every year for Easter Sunday dinner because they have no other place to go. So they scrub their faces, clean their ragged clothes as best they can and walk the few blocks over to Clancy's place - the Midnight Mission in downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The sprawling, multi-centered megacity is such that its downtown core is often considered just another district like Hollywood or . ``We'll have a good meal for them - ham, yams, baked potatoes, vegetables and milk,'' Clancy Imislund, director of the mission, was saying Friday. ``I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when we give them the other thing. They're going to be so surprised and happy.'' The other thing: Easter baskets that a Van Nuys family and their friends were busy making Saturday afternoon so kids living in tenements and shelters on Skid Row skid row a run-down area frequented by alcoholics. [Am. Culture: Misc.] See : Alcoholism Skid Row district of down-and-outs and bums. [Am. Usage: Brewer Dictionary, 1008] See : Failure would have what every other kid celebrating Easter has today. A big basket filled with goodies good·y 1 Informal interj. Used to express delight. n. also good·ie pl. good·ies Something attractive or delectable, especially something sweet to eat. . Linda Watson Linda Watson (born September 15, 1955) is a former field hockey player from Zimbabwe, who was a member of the national team that won the golden medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. and her daughter, Miesha, were putting the finishing touches finishing touches finish npl the finishing touches → der letzte Schliff finishing touches npl → ultimi ritocchi mpl on a few dozen Easter baskets they were making to sell at a fund-raiser recently at the Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. elementary school elementary school: see school. where Miesha teaches sixth grade. As usual, they were laughing and carrying on. This little in-home basket-making business the Watson family had started was paying dividends - not just in some extra spending money, but by helping keep their family close. In the other room, Linda's husband, Foriest, and their 22-year-old son, Foriest III, were working on more baskets while talking and watching sports on TV. ``Wouldn't it be great to make up some of these baskets and give them out to kids who won't be getting any baskets this Easter?'' Miesha, 26, said to her mom. Linda Watson nodded. ``You always hear about people giving toys and presents to needy kids at Christmastime, but what about the other 364 days of the year?'' she said. The next day she asked co-workers at the Center for Government Studies in West Los Angeles
Someone mentioned the Midnight Mission. Clancy Imislund hung up the telephone and smiled. He could tell just by her voice that he was going to like this woman named Linda Watson. She had a good heart, and she was smart. She was also very right. At Christmastime, the phones at the Midnight Mission and other downtown shelters ring constantly, with people feeling the holiday spirit and wanting to help the homeless and neighborhood families living in poverty on Skid Row. But Linda's call was the only one he had received this Easter from a person wanting to come down to the mission and help. Everybody pretty much forgets the people who live down here the rest of the year, Clancy told her. And, more and more, those people were mothers with young children. The mission's clientele today is a far cry from the days it operated out of Brother Tom Liddicoat's Skid Row hotel room back in the early part of the century. Men, down and out, gathered at night in Brother Liddicoat's room to listen to him preach preach v. preached, preach·ing, preach·es v.tr. 1. To proclaim or put forth in a sermon: preached the gospel. 2. hellfire and damnation - lost souls waiting for the clock to mercifully mer·ci·ful adj. Full of mercy; compassionate: sought merciful treatment for the captives. See Synonyms at humane. mer strike midnight. ``If the men could sit through the sermon, he gave them a meal at midnight,'' Clancy said. ``That's how we became known as the Midnight Mission.'' Today, there are no religious sermons - no holding a Bible in one hand and a meal in the other, says Clancy, who has been director of the mission for 25 years. Would the 90 to 100 Skid Row children he expects to come to dinner today with their families like to have their own Easter basket? You bet, Clancy Imislund told Linda Watson. ``They're going to think it's absolutely wonderful,'' he said. Linda Watson picked up the phone again after talking with Clancy and began spreading the word. She needed help, and she needed it fast. Her family had less than a week to make 100 Easter baskets for the kids having dinner at the Midnight Mission this year. She could desperately use some more hands and help in buying the milk chocolate bunnies, jelly beans jelly beans traditional treat for children on Easter Sunday; symbolize eggs. [Pop. Culture: Misc.] See : Easter , eggs and balloons for the younger children, and some school supplies for the older ones. Could they help? The answer was there Saturday afternoon in the Watsons' Van Nuys apartment. Friends, customers, co-workers, members of her church, and even her car mechanic - more than a dozen people making and filling up Easter baskets so some kids living on Skid Row would have more than a free meal this Easter. They'll have what every other kid celebrating Easter in this city will have. A basket. CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO Saraina Thrasher thrasher: see mimic thrush. thrasher Any of 17 species (family Mimidae) of New World songbirds that have a downcurved bill and are noted for noisily foraging on the ground in dense thickets and for loud, varied songs. , left, Janice Roberts and Linda Watson assemble Easter baskets Thursday. David Sprague/Daily News |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion