Soroptimist International of Cypress partnered with Bruno Serato from White House Restaurant in Anaheim to collect pasta to support Caterina’s Club. Caterina’s Club named for Bruno’s mother was established after a visit to the Boys and Girls Club of Anaheim. There they noticed a 6-year old boy eating potato chips for dinner because his family couldn’t afford a proper meal. Caterina insisted that Bruno make some pasta for the child. They soon realized that there were many more of these hungry ‘motel children’, so Bruno began making pasta for 72 children, 5 nights a week. Today, that event has now expanded to feeding nearly 300 kids, 7 nights a week and over a quarter of a million meals to date.
Soroptimist is an international volunteer service organization for business and professional women who work to improve the lives of women and girls in local communities and throughout the world. After Bruno was selected and honored as the “2012 Americana Man of the Year” by the Cypress College Foundation in February, ideas for the “Pasta Drive” were being tossed around. The decision was made to use the Cypress Community Festival to bring awareness to this Soroptimist Club while collecting the pasta.
To entice festival attendees to donate pasta, a drawing for a pair of tickets to Cypress Soroptimist’s Annual Fundraising Event, scheduled for February 22, 2013 was held. The goal of 1,000 packages of pasta was achieved, and on September 5, club members loaded up a couple SUVs to make the delivery.
Contact sicypress@soroptimist.net for more information about the organization or go to www.cypresssoroptimist.org to get your tickets to Joey & Maria’s Hawaiian Honeymoon Mystery at the Beach.