The Children’s Lifesaving Foundation’s (CLF) hosted its second annual Spirit of Giving Brunch at the Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue on Saturday, April 18.
The event opened up with CLF Founder Maria D’Angelo’s granddaughter, Faith McCaffery, reading some statistics about the CLF’s work in transforming the lives of homeless and at-risk youth and families in L.A. since 1993. Emcee John Cygan then showed the audience a video of some CLF youth in a 2006 KTLA news piece and invited them to join him on stage — now 10 years older than in the video — including Randy De Leon, a Marine, who just returned three days ago from his second tour in the Middle East. The other teens who spoke — Jasmin Romero, Enid and Giovanni De Leon, and Cristian Lopez — brought tears to the audiences’ eyes as they spoke of hardships endured and goals soon to be completed. (All of the youth are in college.)
The afternoon continued with five women speakers — singer and song-writer Dr. Rickie Byars Beckwith of Agape International Spiritual Center, writer/producer/activist Kathy Eldon of Creative Visions, “Parenting with Presence” author and parenting specialist Susan Stiffelman, local Partners Trust Malibu Realty partner Sarah Kosasky, and best-selling author and spiritual writer Heather McCloskey Beck. Each woman spoke briefly yet powerfully about what the “Spirit of Giving” meant to each of them and told a personal story. The afternoon ended with a performance by Jonathon Forrester, who sang a beautiful rendition of the classic Leonard Cohen song, “Hallelujah.”
The Spirit of Giving’s major sponsor was the Fields Family Foundation, represented by Alex Fields, who is also a volunteer tutor for the CLF’s Care Through College Program and helps the CLF in many other capacities. Local supporters include Ellen Poyer, Marla and Jeffrey Michaels, Mark & Cha-Cha Weinstein, Ciro and Deborah D’Angelo. Suzanne Matteson, who introduced Heather McCloskey Beck, also headed up the event committee.
“I am so blessed to be able to do this work for over 20 years,” Maria D’Angelo said from the stage, as she thanked the City of Malibu (one of the CLF’s very first funders for its Camp4All Program for homeless youth) and the Malibu residents who have helped to make the CLF’s work possible, including Mayor Pro Tem Laura Rosenthal, Councilmember Lou La Monte and past City Council members Sharon Barovsky and Andy Stern. She also thanked Arnold and Karen York of The Malibu Times for chronicling the progress of the CLF’s work for the past 22 years.
