California Pizza Kitchen Employees Cook Up Pasta and Holiday Cheer for the Homeless
Paul Cichus, General Manager of the Brentwood California Pizza Kitchen, plates pasta to be served to homeless men and women at St. Joseph Center’s Bread and Roses Café in Venice. Employees from CPK volunteered to prepare and serve hot meals at the Café on three separate mornings during the holiday season, providing approximately 150 meals on each occasion.
California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) is well known for the fare served in its restaurants, but on a few recent mornings in December, employees from CPK outlets around Los Angeles put their skills to work to help feed homeless men and women at St. Joseph Center’s Bread and Roses Café in Venice. CPK employees ranging from a server to a Regional Manager were on hand to do everything from preparing pasta with a hearty meat sauce, to readying Caesar salad, to clearing tables and resetting them for the next seating. CPK also brought along desserts that included chocolate cake and peanut butter cheesecake.
St. Joseph Center Executive Director Rhonda Meister noted that “Bread and Roses Café can’t even function without volunteer servers, but only a few groups come in with all the ingredients in hand, ready to cook first and then serve. The team from California Pizza Kitchen exemplifies what the holiday spirit of giving is all about.”
St. Joseph Center Gives and Receives at 2007 Taste of the Nation Event
Culinary Training Program graduate Glenn Melo (center) is flanked by CTP Program Manager Thomasine Howlett (left) and instructor / chef Tim Heffner (right) in St. Joseph Center's booth at the 2007 edition of Taste of the Nation-Los Angeles. St. Joseph Center was once again the only event beneficiary to also serve food at a tasting station.
Glenn Melo provided service with a smile from St. Joseph Center’s tasting booth at Share Our Strength’s annual “Taste of the Nation” event in Media Park. As Glenn handed out cookies and brownies, he was following in the footsteps of other graduates of St. Joseph Center’s Culinary Training Program, who in recent years have regularly participated in the event, gaining the opportunity to network with chefs from some of Los Angeles’s top restaurants. Glenn was joined in the booth by Program Manager Thomasine Howlett and Chef Instructor Tim Heffner. The crew served their chocolate brownies and chocolate chip, peanut butter, and sugar cookies to attendees eager for something sweet after sampling such mouthwatering savory dishes as roasted pork on corn polenta from Asia de Cuba, finger sandwiches with duck and gorgonzola cheese from Joe’s (on Abbot Kinney), and veal-topped gourmet pretzels from Santa Monica’s Rockenwagner.
After completing CTP earlier this year, Glen enrolled at Los Angeles Trade Tech College, where he found himself able to skip the introductory classes thanks to culinary skills that have put him well ahead of his fellow students. “CTP gave me a great jumpstart on my career!” Glen said. Culinary Training Program exemplifies St. Joseph Center “hope through empowerment” ethos by taking just 10 weeks to train people for careers in the food service industry. With a 70% job placement rate, it’s a successful program that gets results fast. Clients have found jobs in top restaurants all over L.A., including Ciudad, Locando del Lago, and the recently closed Norman’s on Sunset Blvd.
At this year’s Taste of the Nation event, St. Joseph Center was once again the only group both offering tasty treats as a vendor in a booth and benefiting from the event as a grant recipient. In the last 15 years, the Center has received nearly $100,000 from Taste of the Nation (sponsored by national hunger organization Share our Strength). In addition to helping CTP, Share our Strength funds support St. Joseph Center’s nutrition and job training programs, including supplemental groceries for low-income families, hot meals for the homeless and subsidized childcare where homeless, formerly homeless and low-income children receive two square meals a day.
Joseph Center held its 22nd annual Dinner Dance event on Saturday June 2, 2007 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles. The event attracted a sellout crowd and raised $528,000 to fund vital services for low-income and homeless families and individuals in Venice and Santa Monica.
2007 Dinner Dance Reaches New Highs
Steven Lippman (of UCLA Anderson School of Management), Steven M. Hilton, Rayshan Middleton, Kevin McCardle (also of UCLA Anderson School), and Raymond Middleton were honored at the event.
St. Joseph Center held its 22nd annual Dinner Dance event on Saturday June 2, 2007 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles. The event attracted a sellout crowd and raised $528,000 to fund vital services for low-income and homeless families and individuals in Venice and Santa Monica.
Television star and longtime St. Joseph Center supporter Wendie Malick hosted the event. Honorees included Steven M. Hilton, President of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and St. Joseph Center board member, who received the Hope Through Empowerment award; UCLA’s Anderson School of Management (represented by Dean Judy Olian along with Professors Kevin McCardle and Steven Lippman), recipient of the Community Service Award for the work of its faculty and staff as volunteers and on St. Joseph Center’s Planting Hope, Growing Lives capital campaign; and Raymond Middleton, who received the agency’s Special Recognition Award. By working with St. Joseph Center’s Homeless Service Center, Mr. Middleton has gone from living in his car to renting his own apartment and providing a home for his mother and seven-year old son.
The Dinner Dance brought 500 local business owners, professionals, and community leaders, including Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton, to the Music Center for an evening featuring live and silent auctions, live music that included the debut of two new songs by jazz recording artist Lisa Hilton (wife of honoree Steven M. Hilton), and views of the towers of downtown and the mountains beyond.
St. Joseph Center’s Dinner Dance is a critical source of support for the Center’s ten programs, which provide services such as job training, affordable childcare, supplemental groceries and hot meals for 6,500 working poor and homeless families and individuals to achieve greater health, stability and self-sufficiency.
St. Joseph Center Executive Director Honored as Citizen of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers
Rhonda Meister thanks the local chapter of the National Association of Social Workers as St. Joseph Board Chair James Bancroft (L) and Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl (R) look on.
The California chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) honored Rhonda Meister as Public Citizen of the Year at a dinner held May 22 in Santa Monica. Also attending the event were Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl and L.A. County Commissioner Zev Yaroslavsky’s Senior Field Deputy Flora Gil Krisiloff. St. Joseph Center’s Board Chair James Bancroft noted in his introductory remarks that, in the aftermath of the L.A. riots 15 years ago, Rhonda had mentored him on bringing communities together. The assembled professionals, public officials, and friends then gave Meister a lengthy standing ovation. Councilman Rosendahl extolled Rhonda’s compassion and Senior Field Deputy Krisiloff echoed St. Joseph Center’s Board Chair, saying that “Rhonda has been my mentor too.”
Dorothy J. Berndt, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who works with St. Joseph Center and other Westside agencies, was also honored that evening as California Social Worker of the Year.
Meister and Berndt were previously honored by the state organization at a ceremony held in Sacramento on May 5, 2007.
Meister was subsequently honored by the national organization as its sole Public Citizen of the Year at a ceremony held October 29 in San Francisco.
Teens Get College Preview
A local college admissions officer shares steps that low-income families can take
to help prepare high school students for higher education.
St. Joseph Center hosted its annual College Night on March 22, 2007 to help encourage teens from low-income families to consider higher education. During the event, youth and their families had the chance to hear from the Admissions Officer of Santa Monica College, and a Financial Aid officer from Loyola Marymount University. College Night was a particularly important evening for St. Joseph Center’s mentoring programs, which match teens with community role models. One of the goals of the Center’s mentoring programs is to help young adults complete high school and enroll in college, and last year five seniors accomplished that goal.
College Night was organized by St. Joseph Center’s Family Center and Food Pantry program, which provides supplemental groceries as well as family programming to low-income families living in Santa Monica, Venice, and surrounding communities.
Seniors Enjoy Skirball
Clients of St. Joseph Center’s Senior Services program get a free day at the Skirball Cultural Center
On March 20, 2007, the Skirball Cultural Center provided 16 clients of St. Joseph Center’s Senior Services program with a complete day of enriching activities. Clients, who received free transportation and entrance, were first welcomed to the Skirball Cultural Center by Wendy Levine of Bet Tzedek Legal Services who provided a ½ hour educational lecture on estate planning basics. The seniors then were treated to lunch and a private, docent-led tour of the Center’s core exhibition, "Visions and Values: Jewish Life from Antiquity to America," before they were treated to a public viewing of the Steven Spielberg film The Sugarland Express. Shirley Rosenberg, a Volunteer with the Center comments, “It is such a pleasure to have people from all walks of life enjoy our Cultural Center.” World-renowned for its architecture as well as its exhibits, the Center hosts community outreach events to seniors two times per month. Visiting the Skirball excited and inspired a number of St. Joseph Center’s older clients. “Everything here is high quality,” stated one SJC client.
Now in its 21st year, St. Joseph Center’s Senior Services program helps low-income older men and women from Santa Monica and Venice live vibrant and independent lives. Special outings like the Skirball visit offer them opportunities for fresh air, social interaction and cultural enrichment they might not
otherwise be able to afford.
Boost Mobile RockCorps Brings Volunteers to St. Joseph Center Childcare Site
Volunteers from Boost Mobile RockCorps help out at St. Joseph Center
St. Joseph Center was the site of a major volunteer clean-up on on Saturday, February 10, 2007. It was one of the first such efforts in Los Angeles by Boost Mobile RockCorps, a groundbreaking organization that works on a national level to recruit youth to volunteer for social change. Through Boost Mobile RockCorps, volunteers are encouraged to donate their time and effort so that they can earn a ticket to an exclusive, high-profile, televised concert. St. Joseph Center was chosen to be among Boost Mobile RockCorps’ first Los Angeles partners, and welcomed 15 young men and women to its Early Learning Center at 4th and Ashland. The RockCorps team spent the day cleaning, gardening and painting Early Learning Center, which provides subsidized childcare and preschool to 32 low-income and formerly homeless children. The RockCorps project helped to make Early Learning Center a safer and cleaner place for children to learn, grow and play.
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