Dad in program:

Girls and their mothers spent Saturday outside a grocery store collecting donations of food, hygiene items and cleaning supplies for single parents in Huntington Beach.

Huntington Beach’s Pacific Coast chapter of the National Charity League, a national nonprofit organization bringing mothers and daughters in middle and high school together to do community service, collected donations for Project Self-Sufficiency’s food pantry.

Project Self-Sufficiency is a Huntington Beach program run by the city’s Community Services Department to help low-income single parents become economically independent. Participants have to maintain a job while going to school to get into a career that will allow them to support their families, said Sue Saffarrans, a member of the Project Self-Sufficiency Foundation, which helps raise funds for the program.

“Our key goal is to help these parents get educated so they can be self-sufficient,” Saffarrans said.

Tom Flood, a recipient of the program, came by to lend a hand and donate what he could with his 6-year-old daughter Sereena.

Flood has been a part of the program for about a year after being introduced through an assistance program from Golden West College, where he attends. The program, which is associated with helping single mothers, also assists men.

Moving to California, Flood learned he couldn’t work as a contractor without proper credentials, as he had in Arizona, and lost his job.

His marriage also came to an end, and he had to take full custody of his daughter.

Not having a job and relying on assistance was “humbling,” Flood said. For a time, he said, he questioned if he had failed. Now, “everything’s falling into place.”

Flood is one of the 42 single parents the program is supporting. Budget cuts have left the program looking for donations at any level. Supplies in its food pantry are dwindling.

Girls and their mothers took turns asking shoppers to buy a couple of items from a list of needed food and supplies.

Some people filled up the blue National Charity League reusable bags the girls handed out, while others just dropped off one item from the list.

“Whatever they can donate helps,” said Brooke Thompson, 13.

“When people hear it’s a local Huntington Beach charity, they grab a bag,” added her mother, Deanne Thompson.