INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED HUMANITARIAN TO SPREAD WINGS INTO LONG BEACH TO FEED CITY'S UNDERPRIVILEGED "MOTEL" KIDS

Sir Bruno Serato, who has garnered international acclaim including being knighted by the Italian government and named a CNN Hero for feeding 1,000 underprivileged Orange County “motel” children each night, has announced the expansion of his program into Long Beach, where 350 additional children will be served nightly. This represents his foray into the LA County market.

For the past 10 years, Caterina’s Club, the nonprofit he founded in honor of his mother, has served up pasta dinners for hungry “motel” children, so named because their poor, working class parents are relegated to living in cheap, crime-filled motels. Earlier this year, the program fed its 1,000,000th meal. To facilitate reaching children in need, his team work in tandem with 10 Boys & Girls Clubs in OC and will now add 3 Long Beach clubs.

The Long Beach program will be structured differently than the one in Orange County since these Boys & Girls Clubs are outfitted with kitchens. Serato said that in addition to equipping the kitchens so that they can handle the large-scale pasta preparation, he will deliver uncooked pasta and sauces to the clubs each evening and the meals will be prepared there. In addition, he will train the kitchen staff on preparing the meals.

“I’m delighted to venture into LA County for the first time and am confident that we will improve the lives of those most precious to us – the children,” said Serato, who prepares the pasta dishes each night at his Italian steakhouse, Anaheim White House. “Young people need to eat well in order to focus, concentrate and learn so we want to feed as many of the underserved as possible.”

Caterina’s Club was started in 2005 after a visit by Serato and his mother to a local Boys and Girls Club. There, she saw a 7-year-old boy eating a bag of potato chips and when she learned that the snack was all he had for dinner, she instructed her son to head back to the restaurant and feed the children pasta. He has fed them each evening since.

When the program was at risk of extinction during the collapse of the economy, Serato mortgaged his home to keep it going. But the issue of hunger in OC -- the backyard of great wealth --still exists as it does in Long Beach and many Southern California cities. In addition to feeding the hungry, Serato helps “motel families” find permanent housing.

The massive undertaking has earned Serato an international reputation for his humanitarian work. In addition to gracing the pages of People Magazine several times, appearing on countless national television programs including “CBS Evening News” and being profiled in newspapers and magazines the world over, he received a humanitarian award on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, was honored by the Good News Foundation (LA female newscasters who offer financial grants to worthy causes) and received numerous proclamations, Man of the Year awards and other forms of recognition -- all of which he has accepted to generate public awareness of hunger in our communities.

For more information visit CaterinasClub.org or AnaheimWhiteHouse.com. Anaheim White House is located at 887 South Anaheim Blvd, Anaheim; (714) 772-1381.

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