FOR A GOOD CAUSE:

Newport Beach volunteer Ann Kerr didn’t want to be interviewed for this story. She’s not the type to look for glory when it comes to her charity work.

It was more important, she said, that the community knows about Serving People In Need, the Costa Mesa nonprofit that helps the poor in a variety of ways. Lately, Kerr has been making birthday cards for abused and neglected kids cared for by the group.

Kerr, an administrator at Hillview Acres school in Chino, started making the cards nine years ago for the wards of the state who attend the school.

“Remembering a kid on their birthday makes them feel really validated and special, and these kids need some of that after being abused and yanked out of their homes,” Kerr said.

Kerr’s involvement with Serving People in Need dates back more than a decade to when she first witnessed the organization’s kindness firsthand.

“I raised a son who was quite a handful. When I was looking for help for [him] 15 years ago the executive director [of Serving People in Need] was so kind and caring,” she said. “That’s how I got involved.”

At Serving People In Need, Kerr creates and writes homemade birthday cards for kids whose parents are in transition from a homeless shelter to permanent housing.

Sometimes the kids’ parents are too busy trying to get their lives on track and their finances balanced to remember birthdays, said Kim Frazier, who is in charge of Serving People In Need’s volunteers.

“We take them under our wing for two years and help them with their budget skills to get them self-sufficient as soon as possible,” Frazier said.

Serving People In Need focuses on getting parents who are working full-time out of homeless shelters and into apartments. Most of the people enrolled in the organization’s Guided Assistance to Permanent Placement program are single mothers who are just reentering the working world, according to the nonprofit’s Executive Director Jean Wegener.

It’s not a program for people recovering from a past of drug or alcohol abuse, though. Most of the people involved were not taught some basic living skills and were forced to grow up too fast, Wegener said.

Many of the mothers had children young, dropped out of high school or misused credit and could not pay their bills, leaving them homeless, Wegener said.

The recent sub-prime mortgage crisis has increased calls for help, Wegener said.

“We are starting to see calls where people are saying, ‘I don’t think that I am in this category, but I need help,’” Wegener said.

No matter how busy parents are when trying to make the transition, Kerr makes sure the kids get the attention that they deserve. She makes her custom cards using rubber stamps and sometimes watercolors.

Crafts are not the only way Kerr lends a hand. On a hot day last year she helped repair a women’s recovery home in Orange County with a small group from her church, Redeemer Presbyterian in Newport Beach.

Sometimes on Saturday mornings she brings her craft-making materials to the house and helps the mothers make cards, while their children play.

“It’s great because it gives the mothers a creative outlet and they can make a product that they can send,” Kerr said.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].