Maria Bello spoke before a group of female entrepreneurs at this year’s Sack Lunch Series in Latigo Canyon, where the “ER” and “Grown Ups” actress fundraised for the Venice Family Clinic and promoted her Haitian cause We Advance.org.
By Michael Aushenker / Special to The Malibu Times
Actress Maria Bello delivered the keynote speech Tuesday last week at the second annual Sack Lunch Series benefiting the Venice Family Clinic. The event celebrated the power of female entrepreneurship and, like last year, took place at Malibu resident Audrey Ruth’s Tuscan-style villa. It was attended by a crowd of about 100 mostly female donors, who shared inspiring stories of their own.
The event helped raise needed funds to further the Venice Family Clinic’s mission of providing free, quality healthcare to people in need. The clinic serves more than 24,400 people annually at its eight locations on the Westside of Los Angeles County; of those patients, 97 percent are low-income and nearly three-quarters are uninsured. More than 500 physicians donate their time for free to the clinic, which places particular emphasis on the needs of women, children, the homeless and those with chronic diseases.
One example, noted by the clinic’s CEO Elizabeth Forer, was Carmen Dahlstrom, a healthy young woman who suddenly needed a pacemaker after surviving heart, kidney and lung failure. Diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called scleroderma, Dahlstrom couldn’t afford the medical expenses she would have incurred elsewhere.
“She actually used every service we had: cardiology, reconstructive surgery, social work,” Forer said, including referrals to Santa Monica hospitals UCLA and St. John’s for free MRIs and cardiograms.
The salty, salt-of-the-earth Bello—barefoot in jeans and bright green T-shirt—set the tone for the unconventional Zuma Organic-catered garden gathering. A resident of Venice, Bello got involved through her actress friend Camryn Manheim.
“So many people in our neighborhood lost their health benefits [when the recession began],” Bello said, stressing the urgency of assisting underprivileged and homeless people in these difficult times.
Comfortably addressing the crowd as if chatting up a few gal pals in her living room, the unpretentious Bello, (who this summer shoots the sequel to “Grown Ups,” again playing opposite Malibu resident Adam Sandler) entertained with her feisty, no-nonsense worldview. The mother of an 11-year-old boy, the former “ER” star recounted how her mother was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. When her mother’s doctor told her she had a few months to live, “she laughed. Twenty-seven years later, she’s still living,” Bello said.
Unfortunately, her mother’s illness recently relapsed, yet Bello stressed the importance of having a positive attitude to survive and the risk-taking guts to succeed.
Bello then spoke of her work in Haiti, which began when she was first introduced to the country by director/screenwriter Paul Haggis. A week after a massive earthquake devastated the poor island nation in Jan. 2010, Bello and Malibu-based actor Sean Penn traveled there to galvanize assistance. From that trip grew We Advance, a grassroots organization aimed at advancing the health, safety and well being of women throughout Haiti. This month, Bello and Malibuites such as interior designer Barrie Livingstone are returning to Haiti on a trip for more relief work.
Bello then opened the floor for attendees to share their own stories of conquering adversity and overcoming great odds: Malibu go-getters such as Valerie Sklarevsky, whose political activism, inspired by employer Martin Sheen, has racked up 54 non-violent protest arrests; caregiver company CEO Angelina Bright; Joan Burney Keatings of Pierce Brosnan’s Cinemagic charity; artist/producer Angel Burns; and GEOF.US (Global Echo Online Forum) founder Birungi Ives, who, in 2007-08, was an unemployed mom with a 3-year-old in a recession.
“I followed all the normal avenues of finding work,” Ives said. “I applied to Starbucks, sought work in my field, African-American Studies…It was really tough, isolating.”
Despite minimal experience and her husband’s skepticism, Ives used Yahoo’s site-builder to create a successful website built around her passions.
“Sometimes you have to follow your passion even if people who love you can’t see it,” she said. “Tough circumstances [can] bring about great things. It takes pressure to make a diamond.”