Pepperdine alum wins catered celebration

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Pepperdine University students and staff who could not go home for the holidays enjoy a free catered party from Stonefire Grill won for them by alum Brittany Chin-Lee at the university’s Student Activities Center Dec. 19.

After writing on the plight of students unable to leave campus and join their families and friends for Christmas, a Pepperdine University grad gets her holiday meal wish fulfilled by being named a winner in a contest held by Stonefire Grill.

By Paul Sisolak / Special to The Malibu Times

Pepperdine University’s Student Activities Center was the place for warm hearts and full stomachs last week as more than 75 students and staff were treated to a special Christmas meal, thanks to an alumna who wanted to give something back to classmates unable to go home for the holidays.

The Dec. 19 party took place on account of one person: Brittany Chin-Lee, a Pepperdine graduate who won the catered event through an unexpectedly competitive Facebook contest. Launched several months ago by Stonefire Grill, the wall-writing endeavor was aimed at the humanitarian minded and less fortunate, and solicited people to write a brief essay explaining why they deserved a fully catered party from the local restaurant chain as a way to give back to their communities.

A San Diego native who graduated last year as a business major from Pepperdine’s Seaver campus, Chin-Lee entered the contest and wrote about a saddening trend she witnessed year after year as an undergrad. While most locally based Pepperdine students went home during Christmas break, a great number who hail from out of state or country cannot afford to do so, and they remain stuck on the mostly empty and desolate campus.

Chin-Lee now works at the university and said that it was her goal to give back to those students who have endured a lonely yuletide season.

“I always knew there were a handful of students who didn’t get to go home, who had to stay here,” she said. “It was just something as soon as I saw [the contest], if I was able to cater food for a large group of people, I immediately thought of the students on campus.”

Chin-Lee was faced with the writer’s dilemma of saying more with less; she had just three to four sentences to sum up her sentiment for the contest. After the entries were cast, Stonefire officials were surprised at the overwhelming outcome on Facebook. More than 300 responses came through and a panel comprised of the restaurant’s proprietors realized that narrowing entrants down to just one winner would be nearly impossible.

“It became evident after the first day of the contest we needed to choose more than one winner,” said Justin Lopez, Stonefire’s community relations director.

The restaurant ultimately ended up choosing seven winners in total from across the region. Each writer shared a unifying desire to acknowledge people in their own day-to-day lives who’ve fallen by the wayside or been otherwise neglected-the homeless, the elderly, the widowed, the developmentally disabled.

As one of those seven, Chin-Lee was the only Malibu winner. “We were touched by the fact that she wanted to give back to the students at her school,” Lopez said.

In preparing for the party, Chin-Lee used her affiliation with Student Activities to coordinate with Pepperdine’s Housing and Community Living office to mail invitations to the undergraduate and graduate students she knew would be staying for Christmas. The Waves basketball team was invited, too.

Last Monday’s party, by all accounts, was a resounding success. Event-goers were treated to barbecued tri-tip, lemon garlic chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, breadsticks and salad.

Lopez of Stonefire said that the Facebook contest produced so many “thoughtful and worthy stories” that the dining establishment would be remiss in not repeating it for next year.

“It would only make sense for us,” he said. According to the restaurant’s Facebook page, at least 80 non-winning entries from the contest will still win gifts this year.

Chin-Lee’s most gratifying Christmas gift may not be in winning the catered lunch after all, but an inner quality already possessed by the Pepperdine grad-a sense of school spirit, and a wish for more togetherness that may inspire others to follow her lead.

She said she was happy to see last week’s party take place and hopes that the university will consider holding its own holiday gatherings for on-campus students.

“I was really glad to be a part of it this year,” Chin-Lee said. Plus, there’s one thing she said that can’t be denied: “Everyone loves free food.”