Giving to others can be a gift in itself, as the Imperial Court de San Diego proves every holiday season. The Court held its 27th annual Toy Drive this year, raising over 850 toys and 50 gifts for children and families in need throughout San Diego County.

Each year, numerous bars, restaurants and organizations in San Diego participate in the toy drive, encouraging patrons and guests to contribute toys to donation boxes; many even help raise additional toys and funds by hosting charity events. The toys are distributed directly to children at holiday festivities throughout the area, and the funds raised are used to purchase gifts for teenagers and adults, such as food and clothing gift certificates, movie passes and CD walkmans.

Once all the toys are gathered, they are delivered to participating organizations, where they are then wrapped and given to the children. This year, over 300 toys were donated to the North County Medical Center — Encinitas Health Chapter to be distributed to clients, 50 toys went to the American Red Cross for families affected by the recent fires and 100 toys were distributed to ACOSIDA, Las Memorias AIDS Hospice and APICAP. Clark Middle School, Interfaith Shelter Network, H-Town — a program of Horizon Christian Fellowship in southeast San Diego — and Barrio Logan Station also received toys and gifts. From North County to south of the border, the Imperial Court and the San Diego GLBT community helped spread a little holiday cheer.

For the past three years, The Imperial Court has been donating 200-300 toys from their toy drive to the North County Medical Center — Encinitas Chapter holiday party.

“[The Imperial Court] has been very generous for the last three years that [they’ve] contributed toys. We also get toys from Toys for Tots,” said Dr. Patricia Chu, practice manager of the North County Medical Center — Encinitas Health Chapter, and one of the toy drive’s main coordinators. “Every health center kind of has to scramble to get their toys, but we’ve been fortunate. We’ve always had generous people such as the Imperial Court and Toys for Tots. We planned for about 700 children this year, and in previous years we’ve planned for about 400, so I think this year is our biggest party that we’ve ever planned.”

North County Medical Center — Encinitas Health Chapter is one of nine community health centers of North County Health Services. They have held their annual Christmas party for the last seven years, which includes food, drink, music, face painting and a visit with Santa complete with a Christmas gift.

“For some of these children, this is the only gift they will get for the whole season,” said Chu. “We started doing this Christmas party seven years ago, and every year it gets a little bigger and a little better. We try to make it a party atmosphere where the children don’t just come for a gift. We like them also to play games, enjoy some refreshments, and do some crafts. Just to be a relaxing time for the whole family to come to just have a good time, stick around for a while and actually enjoy the day and the afternoon with us.”

When Noel Guanzon, Emperor XXV, co-chair of the Imperial Court Toy Drive and hotel sales manager at Grand Pacific Palisades Resort and Hotel, learned that the Grand Pacific Palisades was working with the American Red Cross to organize an all-expense paid Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for 25 families that lost their homes in the Crest Fire, he coordinated with the Imperial Court to supply toys and $50 gift certificates.

“Right now these families are staying in tents, motor homes, or little shacks on their property,” said Guanzon. “They all have kids ranging from six months to 17 years old.”

Guanzon said the event has been a wonderful addition to an already busy Imperial Court holiday charity season. The families were picked from five churches in San Diego County that had members who had lost their homes, including Shadow Mountain Community Church, St. Louise de Merrillac Catholic Church and Cardiff Canyon Community Center. Those families signed up on lists provided during church services, and the winners — five from each church — were announced a few days prior to Christmas. The winners received a two-night stay at the Grand Pacific Palisades that included a Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas Day feast, a Christmas tree in every room that they could take home with them, ornaments from Legoland and toys and gift certificates from the Imperial Court.

Guanzon has been involved with the Imperial Court Toy Drive since 1993. Independent of his charity work with the Imperial Court and his full time job, he has also personally sponsored Christmas for three families every year since 1995, through APICAP. “You can say that’s why my name is Noel — it’s my season!” he laughed. “I love doing anything for the kids. It’s something I really enjoy doing, especially when I see the kids, all smiley and opening their gifts. It’s really different when you see this; you just have to experience it. It’s very tiring, very overwhelming and very stressful other than what I do 9-to-5 and all the other Christmas parties I do, but it’s a nice tired feeling and it’s absolutely worth it.”

APICAP has been participating in the Imperial Court Toy Drive for the last five years. This year, APICAP received 100 toys from the Imperial Court, which they distributed to APICAP clients and to two AIDS agencies in Tijuana, Las Memorias AIDS Hospice and ACOSIDA, an AIDS clinic. The bulk of the toys APICAP distributes go to Las Memorias AIDS Hospice and ACOSIDA.

Jess San Roque, executive director of APICAP, said that every year APICAP and members of the Imperial Court deliver the toys they have received from the drive to their clients at a holiday party, which usually takes place the day before Christmas. Because ACOSIDA is open only on Thursdays in Tijuana, APICAP members went down on Christmas to deliver the toys to the kids.

“It is extremely intense,” said San Roque. “I wish a lot of the people here in San Diego would see their faces when they get their toys. I mean, we take things for granted here, and people complain about what they don’t have. If they go there, then they’ll definitely appreciate what they have. It’s really sad.”

San Roque said that APICAP was also in Tijuana at Las Memorias AIDS Hospice during Thanksgiving, and served a Thanksgiving meal to over 60 people.

Chris Horton, a teacher at Clark Middle School, president of the board of the Imperial Court and co-chair of the Imperial Court Toy Drive, coordinated the distribution of 25 CD walkmans, with batteries, to two classes of developmentally disabled students that he teaches. This is the first year that Horton has co-chaired the Imperial Court Toy Drive, though he did arrange for toys to be delivered last year to students at a school he then worked at. This is also the first year that Clark Middle School has been a toy drive recipient.

“We distributed the toys to the students [at Clark Middle School] and they were thrilled,” Horton said. “It was great; I had never had the opportunity before to be so generous with my students. But it was really cute. The kids were terribly excited. The kids know that I work with an organization called the Imperial Court, and they do know that we go down to Tijuana and they are always very interested whether I have gone to the [Las Memorias AIDS] Hospice in Tijuana — they have made cards for me to take to Tijuana. I explained to them that it was the same people [the Imperial Court] that wanted to give them a Christmas present and bought them these CD players and they thought that was really cool. I told them that the only thanks they wanted was a nice letter and a picture showing ‘whether you were happy or not when you opened your present.’ And as I said, they were justifiably happy. It made the day really special, and I’m sure for some of them that is the first CD player they have ever had.”

Horton took additional toys down to ACOSIDA in Tijuana the day before Christmas, where there was a holiday party for children and families.

Barrio Station is a youth outreach program in San Diego’s Barrio Logan that assists disadvantaged and high-risk youth through prevention and education services, scholarship opportunities and crisis and gang intervention. They hold a toy drive every year that nets 600 toys from numerous participating organizations, which are distributed at their annual holiday Christmas party. The Imperial Court has been donating to their toy drive for the last five years.

“We get approximately 100 toys a year from the Court,” said Rachel Ortiz, executive director of Barrio Station. “Normally the Court brings the toys while the [other] toys are being wrapped, which is neat because they get to see the ladies in action. They drive right up to Santa’s shop and drop off the toys, and it’s just a wonderful thing. We appreciate it very much, because when you have an organization that serves such a big community, to have certain groups that you can rely on every year is just a blessing, it really is. If you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done, and every kid should enjoy the tradition of Christmas. We get 600 toys together, and we try to tell them what Christmas is about. It’s more a time of appreciation and a time to be spiritual about life and about each other. They are very young, so you can’t tell them a lot but we try to impress upon them to be good neighbors, not litter in the streets.”

The Barrio Station annual Christmas party also features neighborhood “half-pint” performers, who practice their Christmas songs a few months before the party at a year-round music class that Barrio Station offers. There is also a Christmas choir made up of neighborhood kids. “Out of tune, but we love them,” laughed Ortiz. “They wear little Santa hats, and little hats with reindeer antlers and some wear little angel hats or jingle bell hats. They’re all just really darling.”