Pasadena’s Operation Gobble Gobble Lands for 13th Year (Pasadena Now)

by | Nov 24, 2015 | Union Station in the News

Published : Friday, November 20, 2015 | 12:51 PM

Mayor Terry Tornek, Ralphs Grocery Company and Food 4 Less will host the 13th Annual “Operation Gobble Gobble” beginning at 7:30 a.m., Saturday, November 21, 2015 in front of Pasadena City Hall, 100 N. Garfield Ave. to distribute 450 Thanksgiving turkeys with all the trimmings to local human service agencies.

In about 90 minutes, a whirlwind of charitable goodwill envelopes the area in front of City Hall as volunteers dash about to distributed the donated food to a long line of pre-determined charitable organizations that receive the items for re-distribution to their clients prior to Thanksgiving.

Including this year, more than over 4,500 Thanksgiving feasts have been provide to the Pasadena community by Ralphs and Food 4 Less, the equivalent of about 45,000 meals, as part of Operation Gobble Gobble.

“Thanksgiving is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to give thanks for the many blessings we’ve received throughout the year,” Pasadena Mayor Terry Tornek said. “I’m pleased to continue the tradition of Operation Gobble Gobble with Ralphs Grocery Company and Food 4 Less, who make it possible to extend a Thanksgiving blessing to many of Pasadena’s most needy families.”

Ralphs and Food 4 Less are generously donating the Thanksgiving turkeys, along with stuffing, canned vegetables, potatoes and pumpkin pie. In addition, volunteer representatives from the companies will team up with Pasadena firefighters and other community members to help distribute the food.

Representatives of community organizations including, among others, Pasadena Unified School District Healthy Start, Union Station Homeless Services, Armenian Relief Society, Ronald McDonald House, Mother’s Club, Friends in Deed Pantry, Lutheran Social Services, Walter Hoving Home, Elizabeth House, and Door of Hope will receive the food for distribution to the community.

“Ralphs and Food 4 Less are pleased to be active citizens in Pasadena, and we are proud to join with Mayor Tornek to help make this Thanksgiving special for many people who otherwise might not have the resources to enjoy a turkey dinner with all the fixings,” said Kendra Doyle, Public Relations Vice President.

For more information about “Operation Gobble Gobble’” contact Rhonda Stone at (626) 744-7147.

Stay connected to the City of Pasadena! Visit the City of Pasadena online at  www.cityofpasadena.net; follow the city on Twitter @PasadenaGov, www.twitter.com/pasadenagov, and like the City on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cityofpasadena. Or call the Citizen Service Center, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, at (626) 744-7311.

L.A.’s Top Master Tastemakers – Together for One Afternoon in “Masters of Taste” (Pasadena Now)

by | Nov 19, 2015 | Union Station in the News

Benefits

To Savor The Finer Things in Life

From STAFF REPORTS
Published: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 | 1:09 AM

 

You are invited to be a part of Masters of Taste, a new and exciting outdoor, luxury festival that will take place on Sunday, April 3rd, 2016 from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on the field of the Historic Pasadena Rose Bowl!

Masters of Taste will bring L.A.’s Top Master Tastemakers together for one afternoon to celebrate all realms of taste. Approximately 2,500 influential food and beverage enthusiasts from all throughout the Greater Los Angeles area are expected to attend this exciting festival which will include the finest fare from 50 Master Chefs and restaurants, signature handcrafted cocktails and tastings from 25 spirit bars, wineries, local craft breweries, lifestyle and beauty brands, live entertainment and much more.

The beneficiary of Masters of Taste will be Union Station Homeless Services, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization committed to helping homeless men, women and children rebuild their lives. Headquartered in Pasadena, the agency is the San Gabriel Valley’s largest social service agency assisting homeless and very low-income adults and families through an array of services including street outreach, meals, shelter, housing, case management and career development. Since 1973, Union Station Homeless Services has helped thousands of people who were once homeless and without hope.

Refined extravagance and luxury awaits you. Mark your calendars and save-the-date to savor the finer things in life with Masters of Taste.

Masters of Taste will take place on Sunday, April 3rd, 2016. The VIP Power Hour will be held from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and General Admission will be from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.. For more information on Masters of Taste or to book your tickets directly, please visit www.mastersoftaste.eventbrite.com.

Masters of Taste will be held at the Pasadena Rose Bowl (1001 Rose Bowl Drive, Pasadena). For more information, contact Masters of Taste at (626) 791-6677, email info@MastersofTasteLA.com or visitwww.MastersofTasteLA.com.

Ho-Ho-Boy there’s A LOT of Holiday Cheer this Season at One Colorado

by | Nov 11, 2015 | Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 5, 2015

OLD PASADENA, CA

Ho-Ho-Boy there’s A LOT of Holiday Cheer this Season at One Colorado.

One Colorado loves the Holidays and we’re really pulling out all the stops this year. We’re decking our halls, donning our Holiday finery and providing Seasonal warm-and-fuzzies to reward all of you who’ve been extra good this year. We’re sure to bring glee even to the grouchiest Grinch and joy to the crabbiest of scrooges.

This year we’re hosting a Happy Holidays celebratory shindig, a Holiday Open House, mounting momentous music and providing poetry on demand. And what would the Season be without an adorable wintry puppet show for the kids. Santa will of course be here for Seasonal photo ops, and since the guy never turns down a good party he’ll make appearances at our swinging soirees.

We’re also making sure that our friends in need share in the Holiday cheer.

In the spirit of giving, we’re holding a coffee drive for Union Station Homeless Services, a Holiday Card Round Up to brighten the season for our friends in need, as well as a toy collection for the Charles Cherniss Tournament of Toys and the Pasadena Jaycee’s “Operation Santa”.

Here’s the Holiday Hoedown Lowdown:

12/5, 6p – 8p One Colorado’s “Happy Holidays Party” with music from Leftover Cuties

Start the Season off on the right note here at One Colorado. We’re serving up a cheery night of live music from the prohibition-era Jazz band Leftover Cuties. If so inclined, you can swing the night away under the stars. We’re also offering funtastic photo booth folly and sweet treat nibbles with (Dots) mini cupcakes and (cows’) milk.

We’ll also be kicking off the One Colorado Charles Cherniss Tournament of Toys collection drive, which provides gifts to 3,000 disadvantaged children throughout the San Gabriel Valley, distributed by the Pasadena Jaycees’s “Operation Santa”.

While you’re here all hopped up on the cheer, slip Santa a note through Santa’s Mailbox, sponsored by Old Pasadena Management District. We suggest playing up all the good stuff you’ve done this year, even if you have to exaggerate. All notes get a reply; don’t forget your return address!

And since it’s not all about you, please join us for our Holiday Card Round Up and pen some Holiday wishes for our friends at the Union Station Homeless services. Your act of open-heartedness will bring a smile to someone who could really use it. Consider doubling your kindness by also bringing coffee for our Union Station Coffee Drive (see below).

12/10 Holiday Open House + a concert with Dead Winter Carpenters
From 5p – 7p, One Colorado stores & restaurants will host special events and promotions dreamed up

just for this special night.

Our Courtyard and Alleys will also feature loads of festive activities and feel-good moments:

  •   On-the-spot poetics from Jacqueline Suskin’s Poem Store
  •   Handbell Choirs will ring your chimes in Smith Alley
  •   Photo booth posing with friends and family (to bring balance to your seasonal selfies)
  •   Santa strolling the festivities (to bring celebrity to your seasonal selfies)
  •   Free gift wrapping with the Pasadena Jaycees (for purchases over $100)
  •   And a fancy One Colorado tote giveaway (for purchases over $200 while supplies last)

At 7p, join us for a courtyard concert with Dead Winter Carpenters. Let Americana roots-rock band Dead Winter Carpenters further gladden your tidings with their five-part harmonies, ferocious fiddling, thumping upright bass, country ramblings and acoustic guitars with driving drums melding the music.

And in the on-going spirit of giving:

  •   Charles Cherniss Tournament of Toys collection at Patagonia (47 N Fair Oaks)
  •   Coffee Drive for Union Station Homeless Services + Holiday Card Round Up

    All funtivities are served up with mini cupcakes and cocoa.

    Holiday Open House store and restaurant + general events specifics will be on our website (and a subsequent press release).

    12/13, 3p – 7p Pet Day Photos with Santa (a tail wagging good time)

    Pose your pooch (kitty, bunny, parrot, hamster or gecko) with Old St. Nick. His lap is your lap (unless your pet is large like a llama; no offense to llamas). Hours and pricing will be on our website.

12/22 “Wacky Winter Adventure” puppet show + screening of “The Mousecracker”

(like Nutcracker but with Mice, and maybe some cheese) presented by Luce Puppet Company.

Puppet shows at 4p and 5p; “The Mousecracker” screening at 6:30p.

Join Pepe the Dog and his pal Snow Girl as they venture to the North Pole in search of the Gingerbread Princess, who rumor has it grants wishes (albeit one per customer). Madcap mayhem ensues as the duo meets some ridiculous penguins, the Abominable Snowman and Snowball King, not to mention all this whilst keeping Snow Girl from melting. This charming and whimsical tale of friendship, loyalty and resourcefulness will melt your heart.

Speaking of Heart – About the Coffee Drive for Union Station Homeless Services:

From 11/31 – 12/11, bring 1 lb. (or more!) of ground, caffeinated coffee to One Colorado’s Management Office (24 East Union) and for your kindness we’ll give you a voucher for a delicious cup of Il Fornaio’s wood-roasted Americano or Italiano

And throughout the Holiday:

  •   Local children & adult choir performances
  •   Santa’s Mailbox
  •   Santa Photo Sessions in Smith Alley
  •   Charles Cherniss Tournament of Toys collection for “Operation Santa” at Patagonia – 47 N. Fair

    Oaks (More info – PasadenaJaycees.org.)

    All event details are on our website and Facebook event page. And don’t be shy – have a question? Call us!

Giuseppe (that’s Joe in Italian). We’re collecting coffee

Monday – Friday, 9a – 5p and at our special events.

One Colorado is a collection of 17 historic buildings housing a curated mix of nationally acclaimed retailers and designers, unique local merchants, inventive restaurants and a boutique cinema. A full city block located between Colorado, Union, Delacey and Fair Oaks, One Colorado is the retail centerpiece of Old Pasadena and favorite casual gathering place for the greater community, with public events hosted year-round in its central courtyard.

One Colorado – 41 Hugus Alley, Pasadena, CA 91103
OneColorado.com / Facebook – OneColoradoOldPasadena
GENERAL PUBLIC: Please call 626.564.1066 or go to onecolorado.com
MEDIA: Please call McLean Emenegger at 626.564.1066 or mclean@onecolorado.com

Homeless shelters struggle to fit into neighborhoods (KPCC)

by | Nov 6, 2015 | Union Station in the News

Homeless shelters struggle to fit into neighborhoods

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A proposed homeless shelter in Orange County is finding itself in a familiar predicament: the target of protests by residents worried about high crime rates and low property values.

Orange County supervisors are holding a public hearing November 17 about plans to build a shelter with up to 200 beds located at 1000 N. Kraemer Place in a light industrial area of Anaheim. Among the points of discussion will be ways the shelter operators can placate neighbors who’ve been holding community meetings to organize against the shelter and plopping signs in their yards protesting the choice of site.

“I do not want my family exposed to the danger, the drugs and the Skid Row feeling that this plan will bring to our community,” Angie Armenta, who lives nearby, told a crowd of hundreds at a meeting in September.

It’s not the first time the shelter’s faced opposition–Orange County has been through three failed attempts to place the site in Santa Ana, Fullerton, and a separate location in Anaheim.

Shelters, it seems, aren’t really welcome anywhere. Despite a growing homeless population, it’s been hard for officials in Orange and Los Angeles counties to find communities willing to host any type of homeless services.

“It’s aesthetic, homeless people don’t usually look too good,” said Rabbi Marvin Gross, who runs the 56-bed Union Station Homeless Services emergency shelter in Pasadena. And oftentimes,  out of fear or a lack compassion, he said, people shun the homeless.

“They’re afraid of them or they find them repugnant,” Gross said.

Over the years, Union Station, which is down the street from KPCC’s studios, has found a way to coexist with retail, businesses, residents, and a daycare next door. Volunteers and staff at the shelter pick up trash on surrounding streets. When a rowdy group this year attracted to the shelter’s meals drew complaints, officials changed the organization’s policy to only serve people who enroll in programs.

In Long Beach, the 200-bed Long Beach Rescue Mission hasn’t always had the best relationship with the city, said Executive Director Chaplain Robert Probst, but it’s made strides by providing services to the neighborhood.

“The way we present it is so important because it shouldn’t be a deterrent,” he said. “It should be a light. It should be a breath of hope.”

The shelter’s meal schedule works around the class schedule of the middle school across the street. Shelter staff and clients staying there keep the homeless from camping in the adjacent park. And residents of the parking-strapped neighborhood are allowed to use the Mission’s lot after hours.

Parents and young skateboarders living near the Mission have mixed feelings about the shelter. Some would rather not have homeless people in the neighborhood – they ask for free cigarettes or stare at kids – but residents say they feel crime has gone down compared to five or ten years ago.

“My kids haven’t had an issue coming to the skate park or the park,” said Marlene Robles who has lived in neighborhood for five years. “It’s just with certain homeless (persons) that come up to them and try to say hi.”

A commanding officer for the Long Beach Police Department said the department does not track homeless-related crime and declined to discuss crime surrounding the shelter.

In Pasadena, Lt. Mark Goodman of the Pasadena Police Department said he’s hesitant to link crime around Union Station to the homeless shelter. But the general public seems to be making that link. About a third of the department’s calls each day involve the homeless–but they don’t necessarily involve crimes.

“Maybe they began as a report of a suspected crime,” he said. “Our officers get there, they find there’s no crime that took place, or it’s a completely different type of incident.”

In Orange County, the Anaheim Police Department is promising extra patrols and surveillance cameras in the area surrounding the proposed 200-bed homeless shelter in The Canyon area. On-site private security will also be provided, Orange County officials said at the September meeting.

Proponents argue the shelter will actually improve the surrounding area. Officials say the shelter operator will be required to hold quarterly advisory board meetings that residents and business owners can sit on and the public can attend.

There’s no data to support the idea that shelters ruin neighborhoods, homeless advocate Larry Hanes told the crowd gathered at a recent community meeting.

“But what the data does support is that shelter linked to housing ends homelessness,” he said.

That argument, however, hasn’t swayed many, like Michael Chew, a real estate agent who lives across the freeway, less than a mile from the proposed shelter site. Chew is with the Orange-Riverdale Homeowners Alliance that opposes the shelter site.

He said homeless camps have grown along the nearby Santa Ana River Trail and worries when the homeless shelter gets full, people will choose to sleep along the trail or in his neighborhood. And then, there’s no turning back.

“If it doesn’t work out or if the shelter becomes problematic, is the county going to close the shelter then,” Chew questioned. “Or will it always be a problem for us going forward.”

Giving Thanks by Giving Back: Union Station Homeless Services feeds thousands in need at Annual Dinner-in-the-Park

Giving Thanks by Giving Back: Union Station Homeless Services feeds thousands in need at Annual Dinner-in-the-Park

by | Oct 28, 2015 | Press Releases

PASADENA – The best way to give thanks is to give back! To show their community spirit and compassion, hundreds of volunteers of all ages will gather together on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day to serve meals and cheer at Union Station Homeless Services’ annual Dinner-in-the-Park.

 

For more than 40 years, this beloved tradition has been a staple event for the community during the holiday season. Volunteers help prepare and serve meals – including turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and pie – to all who are
hungry at Pasadena’s Central Park on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

 

“The event brings the community together! Even if it is for one day, hopefully one day leads to another and another and so on and so on!” said Ginger Mort, member of the Los Angeles Disney VoluntEAR Leadership Council and a Union Station Dinner-in-the-Park volunteer since 2001.

 

Union Station Homeless Services expects to several thousand plates of food this Thanksgiving, November 26th. Meal recipients will include adults and families experiencing homelessness and poverty, senior citizens, and those who are alone at the holidays or unable to afford a holiday meal.

 

In addition to volunteers, the event is made possible thanks to generous corporate partners, including HomeStreet Bank, Tsutayo Ichioka & Satsuki Nakao Charitable Foundation, SuperKing Markets, Longo Toyota Scion Lexus, Pasadena Federal Credit Union, Dove Properties, Norton Rose Fullbright, Pasadena Convention Center, Centerplate, Chipotle and Whole Foods.

“The Pasadena Convention Center and Centerplate is thrilled to support Union Station Homeless Services by preparing turkeys for Dinner-in-the-Park,” said Michael Ross, CEO, Pasadena Center Operating Company. “We applaud Union Station’s work to serve thousands of meals to the hungry and homeless during the holiday season and are pleased to participate in such a worthwhile cause.”

 

“Dinner-in-the-Park is truly a community event and simply would not be possible without the help of dedicated volunteers and dozens of businesses who make this event such a success,” said Marv Gross, CEO of Union Station. All who are able to help are invited to donate their time, food items or funds to this valuable holiday outreach program.

 

Volunteer registration for Thanksgiving opens Sunday, November 1 at 8am, and registration for Christmas opens December 1. Union Station Homeless Services is in need of non-perishable food donations. A wish list of much-needed items can be found on the event page at https://unionstationhs.org/event/dinner-in-the-park-2015/. The community is invited to drop off these supplies in the indicated
sizes at 412 S. Raymond, Pasadena.

 

PLEASE NOTE: Due to Health Department regulations, Union Station Homeless Services is no longer able to accept turkey or prepared food donations at the event.