Church packs in charity - Los Angeles Times
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Church packs in charity

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With the start of the new school year just around the corner,

13-year-old Erika Octaviano held a brightly colored new backpack she

picked up from a local church that distributed school supplies to

families.

“I think it’s pretty cool that they’re giving backpacks and food,”

Erika, who lives in Santa Ana, said. “There are a lot of people

happy.”

At a time of year when many families participate in the annual

ritual of back-to-school shopping, hundreds who could not afford a

shopping spree visited the Christian Outreach Center in Costa Mesa

Saturday to pick up school supplies and groceries for their families.

The Christian Outreach Center is a bilingual church led by the

husband-and-wife team of pastors Lou and Aida Torres. Lou Torres said

the church distributed food and backpacks filled with school supplies

to 260 families.

“Some of the kids feel ashamed not having anything to go back to

school with, so the parents come out in droves,” Aida Torres said.

Charitable activities are essential to the church’s mission, the

pastors said. Lou Torres said the church gives food once a month to

families in Costa Mesa and nearby cities, including Santa Ana,

Westminster and Anaheim.

Christian Outreach Center has been housed in a Harbor Boulevard

business complex for about two years, Aida Torres said. The

sanctuary’s walls are decorated with the flags of many nations,

including Israel, South Vietnam and several Latin American countries.

Saturday’s event was religious as well as charitable. Lou Torres

delivered a spiritual message before volunteers gave school supplies

and groceries to the families. Speaking in Spanish, the families

repeated Torres’ words as he offered a prayer of thanks to God.

The nondenominational church’s current languages are English and

Spanish, and Aida Torres said she would be glad to see her church

have a trilingual congregation if people speaking another language

wanted to attend services.

After Lou Torres’ message, the families collected the goods.

Families walked away from the church carrying backpacks and bags

filled with foods such as yogurt, squash and peppers.

Church member and volunteer Rosie Jordan helped coordinate the

lines and also worked at a face-painting booth.

“It was very hard because there were a lot of kids all over the

place,” Jordan said. “It was very fun. It was great because we got to

help a lot of people who didn’t have food.”

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