Anaheim White House restaurant owner and chef Bruno Serato’s latest creative charitable endeavor begins next year.
He will underwrite the cost of one charity fundraiser each week for the next three years, a donation valued at $1 million.
The fundraising proceeds will go to help more than 150 nonprofits.
Starting in January, one nonprofit per week will receive 100 free three-course meals, service staff and access to the restaurant’s West Wing banquet hall.
Serato made the announcement in front of representatives of nonprofits who gathered in anticipation of being one of 12 finalists for the program.
Serato decided to include them all.
“I was so touched by each and every entry, I would never have been able to choose only 12 finalists,” Serato said. “All are deserving.”
Serato operates his own nonprofit, Caterina’s Club, which feeds poor children in Orange County and helps low-income families move out of motels and into long-term housing.
The organization feeds 50,000 kids a year.
“He’s a machine for those kids,” said Anne Olin, chief executive of The Olin Group, based at The Village at 17th, a nonprofit collaborative in Santa Ana. Olin’s nonprofit Charitable Ventures handles Caterina’s back-office administration.
The Anaheim White House, originally a mansion built in 1909, serves Italian and French fare. Serato, an Italian immigrant, bought the restaurant in 1987. Some of the famous people who have eaten there include Madonna, Sidney Poitier, Andrea Bocelli, Gwen Stefani and two former presidents, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush.
Luxury brand Judith Leiber LLC has created a one-of-a-kind handbag to benefit Costa Mesa-based Festival of Children Foundation, founded by Sandy Segerstrom Daniels, co-managing partner of Costa Mesa-based C.J. Segerstrom & Sons.
The hand-sewn, leather-lined clutch is adorned with seven different color crystals patterned to recreate the carousel horse from the Festival of Children Foundation logo. Festival of Children Foundation helps children’s charities through grants and other means.
The bag debuted at the Festival of Children Foundation’s private opening night party Sept. 1 at South Coast Plaza. One hundred tickets to win the bag will be sold for $100 each throughout September in the Judith Leiber boutique at South Coast Plaza. The winner will be chosen Sept. 29.
The Irvine Health Foundation is mourning the passing of its chairman, David G. Sills, who died Aug. 23 after a long battle with cancer.
Sills was a founding member of the Irvine Health Foundation board of directors, serving as chairman from its inception in 1985 until his death.
“Our sadness is immeasurable,” said Ed Kacic, president of the Irvine Health Foundation. “David was a powerful force behind philanthropy in Orange County. Dave brought to bear all the skills from his various careers: military officer, attorney, mayor, judge. His wry sense of humor was ever-present. Dave was critical to every success the Irvine Health Foundation has achieved. There is now a large void in our lives.”
The Irvine Health Foundation makes grants to improve the physical, mental and emotional well-being of Orange County residents.
Under Sills’ leadership, it provided more than $25 million in grants.
In 2000, Sills created the Laguna Niguel-based Health Funders Partnership of Orange County, a group of healthcare funders working to improve the health of the county’s low-income and uninsured residents.
Sills also was an Orange County Superior Court judge and the presiding justice of division three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana for more than 20 years.
He helped create the School of Law at University of California, Irvine. He also served as Irvine mayor for four years and served as an Irvine city councilman for nine years.
The memorial website for Sills is: https://obit.oconnormortuary.com/obitdisplay.html?id=964796.
