Live Peace with Anaheim White House Restaurant

Bruno Serato’s Anaheim White House Restaurant has been helping to feed “motel” kids by serving 300 dinners everyday since 2005. To date he has served 413,400 free dinners and founded the non-profit, Caterina’s Club, in honor of his mother to continue his important work. Bruno was named “Citizen of the Year” by the Cypress College Foundation presented by the City of Anaheim. He was inspired to make good happen when he visited a Boys and Girls Club with his mother and noticed a child eating a bag of potato chips for dinner. His mother suggested that he feed these children in need and he has expanded the project ever since. Serato says “I can’t stop helping these kids.”

The children are transported in vans from their motel home or local Boys and Girls clubs to the restaurant each night for a tasty meal. Bruno consistently holds fundraisers at his restaurant to benefit Caterina’s Club as well as the Boys and Girls club.

To learn more about Caterina’s Club or donate, visit their website. Volunteers to help serve meals are welcome every night at the restaurant. Email info@anaheimwhitehouse.com  or call the restaurant to volunteer!

Good Happens.

Peace Grl Out!

Live Peace with Human Options

Each week we highlight great organizations making good happen! They truly demonstrate how much each of us can do to help our communities and those in need. Live Peace by finding and supporting a cause that you believe in through the work of organizations like Human Options.

Human Options is a women’s shelter  in Irvine, CA with a mission to help battered women, their families, and their communities end the cycle of domestic violence. It offers a variety of resources such as an emergency shelter and transitional living programs with included counseling, legal advocacy, case management, and job readiness training. They also run a 24 hour emergency, bilingual hotline. Women and their children have access to a Children and Families Counseling Center, K-12 community education, and violence prevention training programs. It also runs a community education program in which their educators present to various schools, organizations, and agencies about issues surrounding domestic violence.

Human Option’s long term assistance and prevention approach has helped thousands of women and children to lead more healthy and violence free lives since they started their work in 1981. Support Human Options by donating fresh produce and spices every Saturday of July, during the Irvine Farmer’s Market, at the Center. Also refer to Human Option’s wish list for donated items or volunteer to help out. Volunteers must be 18  or 16 to work with children’s programs and go through a training workshop.

For more details on the organization’s work, visit their website!

Good Happens.

Peace Grl Out!

Guns Repurposed for Laguna Art Museum Exhibit

The Laguna Art Museum’s February/April exhibit, Victor Hugo Zayas: Mi Obra, featured sculptures built from two tons of destroyed guns. The artist partnered with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Gun Buyback Program, which strives to reduce gun violence by exchanging weapons for pre-paid Mastercard or Ralphs gift cards up to $200 depending on the weapon. Weapons are exchanged at six neutral locations. The program began in 2009 and continues to be a success collecting about 2,000 firearms this year. Zayas’s abstract and striking sculptures represent a transformation from violence to peace.

Photo taken by K.A. Gilligan.

Victor Hugo Zayas has worked to better the L.A. community in the past as founder of the Maestro’s Fine Arts program for underserved youth in 2006. The program works in partnership with Art Center College of Design to give life drawing and figure drawing lessons on scholarship. Zayas vision is that “If you can teach somebody to take an ashtray and see something beautiful, then that person’s life will change.”

Good Happens.

Peace Grl Out!

Meatless Mondays: Jeweled Brown Rice with Orange Zest and Mint

It’s time to begin the week with our Meatless Monday recipe and statistic!

It takes about 12,000 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat while it only takes 565 gallons of water to produce a pound of potatoes, wheat, corn, and rice. Why not try reducing your water consumption by consuming this delicious recipe?

Jeweled Brown Rice with Orange Zest and Mint

Ingredients:

• 2 cups brown basmati rice, rinsed (if you can, soak the rice for up to 8 hours)
• Pinch saffron
• 2 small yellow onions or shallots
• 2 medium carrots
• Zest of 1 organic orange
• Ghee or coconut oil
• ½ Tbsp. cumin seeds
• ½ tsp. turmeric
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• ½ cup mixed dried fruit (dates, apricots, raisins)
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• ½ cup packed mint leaves
• ½ cup packed chives
• 1 small pomegranate
• ½ cup nuts (almonds, pistachios)
• Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
• 1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving

 Preparation:

1. In a small glass of hot water (3-4 Tbsp.), add a pinch of saffron and let steep into a “tea” while you prepare the other ingredients.
2. Dice onion. Grate carrots. Slice off the outer edge of the orange rind, removing as little white pith as possible. Then slice into matchstick-sized strips. Set aside.
3. Heat a knob of ghee or coconut oil in a pot. Add cumin seeds and cook until fragrant, 1 minute, then add turmeric, bay leaves, and the cinnamon stick, stir to coat with oil and fry for another minute until fragrant. Next add onion, carrots, orange rind, and dried fruit. Cook until the onion softens, about 5 minutes.
4. Drain rice and add it to the pot with 4 cups of water, the saffron “tea,” and salt. Cover with a lid, bring to a boil, reduce to simmer for 45 minutes, or until the water has evaporated.
5. While the rice is cooking, wash and chop the herbs. Remove the seeds from the pomegranate. Gently roast the nuts in a dry skillet until fragrant and golden.
6. When the rice is finished cooking, remove form heat. Scoop rice out onto a baking sheet to cool slightly and to prevent the grains from sticking together. After a few minutes, sprinkle with herbs, nuts, and pomegranate seeds. Fold to incorporate. Season to taste (you will likely need to add more salt at this stage).
7. Serve rice with a drizzle of good olive oil and lemon wedge. Although the lemon may seem like an afterthought, it is an essential element of the dish, rounding out the flavours and adding a zesty kick. Enjoy!

Recipe originally posted on Whole Living Daily.

Good Happens.

Peace Grl Out!

Center for Living Peace Turned 2!!!

Can you believe it’s been two years since we first opened our doors? We can’t! What an amazing two years it has been– here are some highlights from over the years…

Taiko drums at our grand opening in May of 2010!

Our peace tree from the grand opening… So strange seeing it so bare!

Chuck Jones Center for Creativity hold a workshop at our grand opening in 2010

Have you seen chalk mandala mural by artist Melanie Stimmell? It’s hard to believe it’s been 2 years since she created it for us.

Read for the Record in 2010

Buzz Lightyear visited us on Halloween in 2010!

Artful Eating with OCMA

Artful Eating with OCMA!

Team Kids Youth Council Servathon!

Good Happens Veggie Grill vegan carrot cake from our 1st birthday celebration!

Rocking out at New Earth Drumming to celebrate our 1st birthday!

Storytime with Cynthia Callard!

Human peace sign at 2011 International Day Peace!

Insights from Africa with Eugene Cooke!

Homemade Cleaning Products with The Ecology Center!

C-Jam with Anibue from UCI!

Peace in Motion Café movie nights!

Here are some highlights from our 2nd Birthday! So hard to believe that it’s been 2 years since we first opened our doors!

New Earth Drumming!

Sneaky Sea Snacks with Algalita!

Can you believe the things found in birds tummies? Thanks for sharing this with us, Algalita!

Abstract drawing with OCMA!

Smiling Monkey Yoga!

Smiling Monkey Yoga!

Kids made cards for a Card Quilt for people in need

Card Quilts!

Fun with the Chuck Jones Center

A visit from Teddy the tortoise, courtesy of Inside the Outdoors!

Buckwheat the Bunny, courtesy of Inside the Outdoors!

Seedlings with The Ecology Center!

Kids’ Qigong with Ryan Lee!

Fun in Kids’ Qigong!

Miniotics Dance Crew!

Kelly kickin’ it with Miniotics Dance Crew

Enjoying a birthday cupcake!

Look at our Peace Tree now!!! 2 years of wishes for peace!

A special thanks to our photographers, Ashley Strong & Megan Hartley. Thanks for celebrating with us! It’s been a wonderful 2 years!  Can’t wait to see what the future brings!

Good Happens.

Peace Grl Out.

Living Peace Series Speaking Event with Queen Noor

What a whirlwind couple of weeks it’s been here at Center for Living Peace! We were so lucky to have Her Majesty come and spend time with us– we had so much fun! The weeks just flew by. We hope you’ve enjoyed seeing photos from the VIP fundraiser and the Living Peace Projects service day. We wanted to share some photos with you from the speaking event on May 2nd, 2012.

Here is a behind-the-scenes photo from the green room at UCI! UCI’s Chancellor Michael Drake, Her Majesty Queen Noor, CLP’s Kelly Thornton Smith and UCI’s 2011-2012 XIV Dalai Lama Scholar Armaan Ahmed Rowther gathered together before the speaking event for a few quick photos.

Isn’t the Queen stunning?! And check out her bracelet! It’s from our very own Live Peace store!

The speaking event was moderated by Armaan Ahmed Rowther. He is the current Dalai Lama scholar at UCI.The Queen spoke about how she feels education is fundamental to the process of interfaith, and how she believes reaching out to one another is an incredibly grand gesture of peace, that is sometimes over looked. She explained that instead of branding people of other faiths with the idea of “other,” we need to make them a part of us. So inspiring!

Before leaving the stage, Her Majesty gave Kelly a hug…

Such a great image. What an amazing event it was! If you missed the speaking event, you can watch it in it’s entirety here. An edited, and better quality version of the video will also be on our site in the next few days!

 

A giant, special shout out to our lovely photographers: Alex Abercrombie, Ashely Strong Photography and Jason Niedle. We also wanted to thank UCI, all the students, staff and faculty that came out to the speaking event, helped set eveerything up to make the event possible, Apples & Oranges for filming the speaking event and Orange County Films for streaming the event for us! We are so grateful to have such an amazing team of individuals helping us make peace real!

 

Good Happens.

Peace Grl Out.

Living Peace Projects: Leap of Faith Day of Service

On Saturday, April 28th, Center for Living Peace hosted its fifth Living Peace Projects day! This time, we partnered with Leap of Faith at UCI, a student-led movement promoting interfaith engagement and community service based on a project from the 2011-2012 UCI Dalai Lama Scholar, Armaan Ahmed Rowther.

The day started off with CLP’s very own, Lauren Quijano, who was the Day of Service student chair welcoming the crowd.

Then UCI’s Vice Chancellor, Thomas Parham thanking the students for their commitment and passion to serve those in need.

Then Armaan said a quick hello and introduced the Queen!

Her Majesty took questions from the audience…

Then the students split up and took buses to Share Our Selves:

And the Islamic Center of Irvine for Uplift Charity…

Some students stayed at CLP to make sandwiches to be donated to the homeless through Vineyard Church in Anaheim.

As well as OC Catholic Worker, Isaiah House (no photography was allowed at this site due to the privacy of the individuals who live there).

All in all– it was a fantastic day!

You can also watch a video from the Living Peace Projects with Leap of Faith at UCI! Thank you to all who participated and made this event a huge success!

Good Happens.

Peace Grl Out.

2012 Human Security Award: Jessica Jackley

The Center for Unconventional Security Affairs will honor social entrepreneur Jessica Jackley with the 2012 Human Security Award on Thursday, May 10 at the Arnold and Mable Beckman Center in Irvine at 7 p.m.

Jessica is focused on empowering other entrepreneurs  by creating new ways and resources for them to succeed. She is the Founder and CEO of ProFounder, a Venture Founder with Collaborative Fund and the co-founder of Kiva.

Learn more about Jackley’s innovative and inspiring work by attending this great event! More details and information on how to RSVP can be found here.

We hope to see you there!

Good Happens.

Peace Grl Out!

Living Peace Series Presents: Her Majesty Queen Noor

This past Wednesday, April 25th, we were proud to host a fundraising event with Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan to raise money for the King Hussein Foundation.

We were so lucky to have this amazing cellist, Philip Sheegog, a 16-year old prodigy play for us.

Her Majesty Queen Noor with Honarary Chair, Christy Walton…

We were so incredibly honored to have Dr. and Mrs. Deepak Chopra attend the event!

Her Majesty with the Dalai Lama Scholar, Armaan Rowther, (who will be moderating the speaking event on May 2nd!) with CLP’s Kelly and UCI’s Vice Chancellor Thomas Parham…

Her Majesty with CLP’s awesome board of directors!

Peace warriors…

The Center for Living Peace staff had a blast at the event too…

Thank you so much to the incredible, hard work of: Upon Request, Ashley Strong Photography, Starrshine Productions, Nikki Thornton, Tethos, Coast Magazine, Pascal, Neiman Marcus Fashion Island, Lindblad, XO Jet, Magic Johnson Foundation, Jessica Grant handbags, Evita on Broadway, Magic Bird on Broadway, Aureole Restaurant, The Chatwal Hotel, Lululemon Athletica, Om My Soul & Kelly Lam, Ritual Cleanse & Marra Okola, Christie Frazier, Shelby Coffman and The Hood Kitchen Space, The Mars Group, Sup ATX paddleboards & WIng Lam Still Mind & Body, Virgin Unite, Christian Dior South Coast Plaza, B. Toffee, AK Johnston, Jim Nye, Paul Fenner Floral Design, Details paper design, Montage Laguna Beach, Miner Family Winery, Morrison Hair, Philip Sheegog and Christy Walton.We couldn’t have pulled off this event with out your support!

More posts to come about the Living Peace Projects and the speaking event!

Good Happens.

Peace Grl Out.

Meatless Mondays: Fettuccine Florentine

It’s Monday again, which means it’s time for another tasty meatless recipe and statistic that will help you start your week off right!

Today’s statistic comes from the Meatless Monday website.

“The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the meat industry generates nearly one-fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that are accelerating climate change worldwide… reigning in meat consumption once a week can help slow this trend.”

Lowering meat consumption can help with the environment and improve our general health, so let’s take a look at a new recipe: Fettuccine Florentine!

Fettuccine Florentine

Ingredients:

• 8 oz fettuccine, cooked according to package instructions
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 fresh red chili pepper diced or 1 teaspoon diced bottled red chili
• 2 cloves garlic, diced
• 6 large flat mushrooms, sliced
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 cup low fat evaporated milk or 1 cup low fat non-dairy powdered milk
• 1 large bunch of fresh spinach, roughly chopped
• 1 cup parmesan cheese or non-dairy parmesan, freshly grated
• 1/4 cup parsley, chopped
• 6 sundried tomatoes, diced

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large heavy-based pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and chili and cook for 3-5 minutes, or until soft and fragrant.
2. Add the mushrooms to the pan and cook for about 3-4 minutes, or until soft and browned. Season with salt and pepper to taste and toss well.
3. Reduce heat to low and add the evaporated milk. Slowly stir for about 5 minutes, or until liquid has reduced by three quarters.
4. Add the cooked fettuccine, spinach, parmesan, parsley and sundried tomatoes to the pan. Toss for 2-3 minutes, or until spinach is wilted and fettuccine is well incorporated.
5. Serve topped with a little extra parsley and fresh cracked pepper.

Recipe originally posted on Veggie.Num.Num.

We hope you enjoy being healthy, happy and good to the environment!

Good Happens.

Peace Grl Out!