Helping Hands Extend Across the L.A. Border : Assistance: Food drives are organized in Irvine and Newport. Laguna group hopes to collect $10 from each resident to provide loans.

Orange County residents continue to respond in heartfelt and creative ways to the devastation resulting from the Los Angeles riots.

A group in Laguna Beach is forming a lending fund to help businesses in South Los Angeles, two more food drives have been organized in Irvine and Newport Beach, and a synagogue in Newport Beach is adopting an inner city school in Santa Ana in an effort to bridge the gap between rich and poor.

In Laguna Beach, two women have organized a committee whose goal is to raise at least $250,000 to provide interest-free loans to people starting a business or rebuilding an existing one in South Los Angeles.

“Laguna Beach for L.A.” co-organizer Ann Tashjian said Wednesday that she hopes each of the city’s 25,000 residents will give at least $10 to create a fund that would help bring about permanent, long-range solutions to rebuilding the Los Angeles community.

“Between redlining of insurance and (lack of) loans, there are areas which simply cannot rebuild. . . . It’s absolutely essential that it happens, and it behooves all of us to do what we can to help make this possible,” she said.

Tashjian and Laguna Beach School Board President Susan Mas have organized a town meeting for 10 a.m. Saturday in the Laguna Beach City Council chambers to rally the community around their idea.

The fund will be administered by the Costa Mesa-based Orange County Community Foundation and will be used by banks to guarantee loans, Tashjian said. Organizers plan to recycle repaid loans to help other business people.

Tashjian hopes other Orange County cities will organize similar, $10-a-resident drives so the fund can have a substantial impact.

In Newport Beach, a synagogue concerned about the racial and economic segregation that was highlighted by the Los Angeles riots has adopted a predominantly Latino school in Santa Ana.

On Tuesday night, the 20-member board of Harbor Reform Temple-Shir Ha-Ma’Alot voted “unanimously and enthusiastically” to adopt Willard Intermediate School, said Rabbi Bernard P. King.

“It was a matter of addressing the problems in our own back yard,” King said Wednesday. After the Los Angeles riot the question for him and other concerned people was: “How do we address the problem out here in Orange County and begin to bridge the gap, the chasm that is increasingly separating Orange County from itself?”

The synagogue wants to foster an “ongoing relationship” between the Jewish community and the inner city by providing tutoring and other assistance to the school and its students, and by organizing trips to amusement parks and other activities.

“I’m happy. I’m real happy. . . . It’s going to be real positive,” said Willard Principal Howard M. Haas.

“We have so many needs around us. . . . We in the inner city have a lot to share,” he said. “I hope it spreads and I hope people realize we have to help each other.”

King said he will urge every synagogue to adopt a school as a way of bringing about “spiritual healing.”

Elsewhere in Newport Beach, a 13-year-old girl inspired her mother to help her organize a food drive. Watching the searing scenes of Los Angeles riots on television, M. E. Clayton wanted to do something to demonstrate her concern. With the help of her mother, Lisa Clayton, and her four siblings, the Ensign Intermediate School student made flyers and posters and distributed them in their communities and to five Newport Beach schools on Tuesday. “We had food on our doorstep within 30 minutes,” Lisa Clayton said.

“I don’t want my kids to feel helpless. I want them to feel they can have a positive impact,” Clayton said.

The flyers asked students to bring canned goods to Mariners, Kaiser and Newport Heights elementary schools, Ensign Intermediate, and Newport Harbor High School. They will take their collection Saturday to the L.A. Regional Food Bank.

In Irvine, Sheila Gecan of St. John Neumann Catholic Church had never spoken before the church before, but after viewing the destruction she felt that her church should “get up out of our pew and do something.”

The 39-year-old homemaker collected $300 on Sunday. On Monday and Tuesday she called churches and Catholic high schools to get them involved in the drive for food and clothing. Seeing a television ad for a moving company, she approached the firm about transporting the items.

Next Monday at 3 p.m., Orange-based Daly Movers will load food and clothing from the church parking lot onto a semitrailer truck and deliver it to the Greater Bethany Community Church on South Hoover Street in Los Angeles.

“We’re praying our church parking lot will be spilled over for Los Angeles,” she said.

How to Give

To contribute to Laguna Beach for Los Angeles:

Make checks payable to Laguna Beach for LA/OCCF and mail to:

Laguna Beach Unified School District

550 Blumont St.

Laguna Beach, Calif. 92651

For information call Ann Tashjian at (714) 497-1445. To contribute to relief efforts:

Make checks payable to Greater Bethany Community Church and earmarked for relief efforts. Mail to:

8406 S. Hoover St.

Los Angeles, Calif. 90044

Diapers, baby formula, clothing, pillows, blankets and non-perishable food can be dropped off Monday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. in the parking lot of St. John Neumann Catholic Church at 5101 Alton Parkway, Irvine, or at the following Newport Beach schools: Mariners, Kaiser and Newport Heights elementary schools, Ensign Intermediate and Newport Harbor High School.

For information or to arrange for pickups before Monday, contact Sheila Gecan at (714) 551-9685.