Spark of Love brings toys to Boyle Heights school

BOYLE HEIGHTS, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- This Spark of Love story comes from First Street Elementary School in Los Angeles. The kids there celebrated a kind of Christmas morning thanks to quite a few firefighters and Santa.

As kids gathered happily for the cameras, firefighter Eddie Marez said, "We feel like Santa Claus, you know, when we come out here. It's pretty heartwarming. We hand out toys to these kids."

Marez is from Fire Station 1 in Lincoln Heights. He, along with other firefighters and ABC7's Spark of Love made this Christmas-like morning possible for the hundreds of kids at First Street Elementary.

"For a lot of these kids, this is their Christmas, they maybe will only get one gift and this is it," Marez said.

"It's kind of important because some kids don't really get any presents at all," said fifth-grader Sherlyn Alvarez. "It's important to give it to other people that don't actually get it."

Yarret Vasquez, a fellow fifth-grader, agreed, "It feels good because we're giving toys out for free and mostly a lot of kids don't get toys for free."

And for each toy or stuffed animal given out by a firefighter, the kids found someone they can really look up to.

ABC7 has decided to remove the comments section from stories. We believe very strongly that our audience should have an opportunity to discuss and debate events in our world; however, we have not been able to moderate the comments as well as we would like. Instead of hosting a platform that could allow a few loud and ugly voices to dominate a conversation, we want to encourage everyone to join us on our social media platforms and speak out there.
Facebook: facebook.com/abc7
Twitter: twitter.com/abc7