Caterina’s Club, the Anaheim nonprofit that feeds thousands of at-risk children each day, will buy a plot of land from the city next to the restaurant it operates out of.
The city sold the near-quarter acre site to the nonprofit for $830,000. Jennifer Oregon, a program director for Caterina’s Club, said they have no plans for the extra space right now beyond storage using a small building at the location.
The Anaheim White House, a high-end Italian restaurant, is next door and owned by Chef Bruno Serato, who founded Caterina’s Club. The location is accessible to the kitchen and is an easy place to store things like ingredients, Oregon said.
Serato and his Anaheim White House staff began making pasta meals for local children nearly 20 years ago; the effort has since grown with children in Orange County and Los Angeles knowing they will receive at least one hot meal each day. More then 9 million meals have been served to day, according to the nonprofit, which has also expanded to help with housing and career training.
The property at 125 W. Vermont Ave., was once a liquor store. The city bought the land in 2004 “to eliminate the blighting influence of a liquor store adjacent to a residential neighborhood,” according to a staff report to the City Council, which approved the sale. Caterina’s Club began leasing the site in 2010.
Councilmember Norma Campos Kurtz said the liquor store “was a horrible eyesore” that distressed nearby residents. “The community is going to be very happy that that sale is going through,” she said.
The city first put the property up for sale as surplus land, and one developer became interested in building housing but reneged due to size limitations, officials said.
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