RANCHO SANTA FE - Children who survived the Witch Creek fire came together Saturday at the Village Church to share in some much needed holiday joy. Hailing from Escondido, Rancho Bernardo and Poway, their smiles were brighter than the breaking sun outside.

The brainchild of Rancho Santa Fe firefighter Chris Danner, Saturday's event provided almost 150 children with new bicycles, skateboards, toys and T-shirts. Danner said he phoned a childhood hero and soon afterward an avalanche of merchandise was on its way from the Tony Hawk Foundation.

"Growing up, I always looked up to him," Danner said of Hawk, a professional skateboarder.

When the October fires were extinguished, Danner said, he felt the need to follow up the effort spent fighting the blazes by helping those who survived them.

"We were still at work and the fires were out," he said. "We felt pretty helpless, what can we do now? I was sitting around, so I started making phone calls. Christmas is coming - there are going to be a lot of kids without homes, without bikes."

Jack Baca, senior pastor for Village Community Presbyterian Church in Rancho Santa Fe, answered the call when Danner needed a conduit for his charity. Because the firefighters are not a charity, they could not directly accept the donations from the Tony Hawk Foundation and the skateboarding legend's sponsors.

"They needed an agency to receive and distribute everything," Baca said. "They called us and asked if we could help, and we said 'absolutely.' "

The church and the Rancho Santa Fe firefighters held bike-building parties all week to ensure the children could leave on two wheels.

"All these bikes had to be put together," Baca said, pointing to a sea of bicycles.

"Each kid has their gifts custom-aged for them," he said. "There are five different sizes of bicycles. Each kid and each family had to be matched up. There has been a huge organizational effort."

C.C. Flashman, a development associate with Hawk's foundation, said the he leapt at the opportunity to aide his hometown's recovery.

"We work with these sponsors every day," she said. "They all were so welcoming and sent as much as they could. Tony has a big name behind him, so he makes it all happen quickly."

Across the church's auditorium were Dynacraft Bikes, TechDeck mini-skatepark toys, Hawk's own Birdhouse Skateboards and T-shirts, Bravo Skateboards, and extreme sport DVDs provided by 900 Films.

"It's heartbreaking and heartwarming," Flashman said.

The faces of the children struck a chord with parents, who got emotional over the joyful reactions.

Dean Barad knelt by his daughter, Krisztina, putting two toy skateparks in a backpack as she gripped her new Shrek skateboard.

The Rancho Bernardo resident said he still marvels at the rescuer who saved his family, banging on his door minutes after 4 a.m.

"We only got out with our lives," he said. "I still want to find that firefighter and thank him. In the rubble we found my wife's watch frozen at 4:22."

Barad now had several more reasons to thank rescue personnel - Krisztina was beaming with delight over her new wheels.

"I can't wait to try it," she said.

For a family that barely escaped the firestorm, the community outpouring has given much-needed assistance on many levels.

"It has been unbelievable how people have come together," Barad said. "The goodwill from this community is unreal. This is just fantastic."

The Village Church had promotional posters across the room for its evening live performance of "It's A Wonderful Life," and the show's theme of hope amid despair was not lost on the congregation's minister.

"That show captures it exactly right," Baca said. "This is what the church and a community does, they take care of each other."

Saturday in Rancho Santa Fe found fire survivors relishing holiday blessings surrounded by a community in the warmest of embraces.

"These people's lives seem unreal because they lost their homes," Baca said. "There's the gratitude they feel towards the firefighters.

"That feels unreal because it's not how the world works a lot of the time. But that is how the world should work all the time."