Homes 4 Families continues projects for vets

Local organizations have come together to help veterans in need of toys and housing this holiday season.

Jim Lentini, the veterans chairman for the Rotary Club Santa Clarita and the veterans coordinator with Santa Clarita Elks Lodge No. 2379, said the two organizations began raising money primarily to send toys for the holidays to Homes4Families, a Woodland Hills-based organization to help veterans find housing.

The toys have been coming in for a few weeks now, and Homes4Families will also give them away to local veterans’ children at their private holiday party on Dec. 15.

“We had a campaign to raise money for the toys for veterans’ children, and we got $500 worth to go into the veteran’s fund, supported by the rotary club and Elks Lodge,” Lentini said.

“This year, we got so many from the Elks Lodge donations that we wanted veterans that can’t afford to buy to come and pick them out so the veterans give their kids so it’s a little more special,” said Bridgett Mills, senior director of program design for Homes4Veterans.

Miguel Del Cid, a veteran who served in the Army in Afghanistan, has lived in the SCV since he was deployed 15 months ago, thanks to Homes4Families helping him find housing.

“It’s been great. The process was easy to get housing and being there for a year,” he said.

So far, his son, 2, has picked toys out gifted to him by Del Cid himself..

“What (the toy drive) means is these veterans are able to have help and support for their children,” Lentini said.

In three years, Homes4Families has built 69 homes for local veterans off Golden Valley Road and Centre Pointe Parkway, and Del Cid was one of the lucky families.

They’re trying to get the last homes done by the spring of 2019, representatives said.