Teens share a holiday party for the haves and have-nots

More than 100 teens from StandUp For Kids, a nonprofit for homeless and at-risk youth, and Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach came together Saturday to share a Christmas dinner and a visit from Santa Claus.

In the church’s Parrish Center, partygoers filled their plates with a hot meal of turkey, ham, stuffing and vegetables.

The weekend event marked the seventh annual holiday party the church has held with StandUp For Kids, a national organization with chapters in Huntington Beach and Anaheim.

The church’s youth group director Pat Krebs first helped create the get-together after a having a conversation with some of her students in the church years ago and realizing they weren’t aware of the struggles some children were going through.

“I started talking about the haves and have-nots with my students and one said there’s no such thing as a homeless teenager,” Krebs said.

After their discussion, Krebs wanted to reach out to an organization dedicated to offering services to homeless youth and found StandUp For Kids. The holiday party began as a way to bring the two groups together and soon became a tradition.

Church parishioners, StandUp For Kids volunteers and other supporters for both organizations donated the food and gifts for the event. Dolls, shoes, a bike, toiletry kits with shampoos and toothbrushes and more than 100 other presents were stacked up in the Parish Center for StandUp For Kids youth on Saturday.

The donations were also collected for St. Anne’s School in Santa Ana and Helping Hands, an outreach group for the church.