Hermosa Friends awards $25,000 in charity ‘Quick Pitch Contest’
The format was ‘Shark Tank.’ The results were charity for all
by Kevin Cody
Representatives from a dozen Beach Cities charities spoke from the Lighthouse Cafe stage Wednesday evening. Slides showing their services flashed on a screen behind them. The slides were the only support allowed during the four-minute pitches. PowerPoint presentations and videos were not allowed.
The evening was hosted by the Hermosa Beach Friends Foundation, formed in 2016 to encourage local philanthropy.
Hermosa Friends president Ryan Nowicki welcomes participants to the 2022 South Bay Nonprofit Quick Pitch Contest.
Each year, the Friends hosts a “Quick Pitch” contest, modeled after “Shark Tank.” The winner receives $10,000, a significant budget boost for the mostly small charities.
The concept isn’t new to philanthropy. But other quick pitches are usually made to foundation members only. Friends holds its pitches in public venues to publicly showcase the charities, explained attorney Ryan Nowicki, who co-founded Friends with his wife Karen, after the two led Leadership Hermosa for 10 years. Ryan Nowicki was Hermosa’s Man of the Year in 2017. Karen Nowicki was elected city treasurer in 2013.
“We thought we’d have a dozen members who would get together for dinner a few times a year and decided who to give money to,” Nowicki said at last Wednesday’s event. Friends raise funds through its $150 annual membership dues, and grant pitches of its own.
Friends now has nearly 100 members. Wednesday night at the 135 seat capacity Lighthouse was standing room only.
Robert Smith, of CASA/LA (CASALA.org).
The evening’s first speaker was Robert Smith, of CASA/LA (CASALA.org), winner of the 2019 Quick Pitch Contest. (The contest was suspended during the pandemic). CASA/LA provides mentors for foster care children. Smith said the $10,000 grant went to training new mentors.
Doug Smith, director of the South Bay Boardriders Club, recalled following Smith’s 2019 quick pitch.
“After Robert spoke, and I took the stage to deliver my pitch, I wanted to say, ‘Just give the money to the foster kids guy,’” Smith recalled.
Hermosa Woman’s Club member Adrienne Slaughter.
Adrienne Slaughter, of the Hermosa Beach Woman’s Club, gave the evening’s first quick pitch.
In 1982, Slaughter was a highly ranked, teenage tennis player in Georgia, when she lost a leg to cancer. The following year she spoke on behalf of United Way to 300 Atlanta Rotarians. Ever since, she has been a nationally in demand, inspirational speaker. Adrienne’s Search for a Cure, founded 16 years ago in partnership with the Hermosa Woman’s Club, has raised over $100,000 for cancer research. She was the Hermosa Beach Woman of the Year in 2019.
Slaughter’s pitch was for the Woman’s Club’s high school scholarship fund. Slaughter made sure the scholarship fund would not be forgotten after the 11 pitches to follow, by singing her pitch, to the tune of Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee.”
Feeling good is easy when it’s for the kids.
And providing more scholarships.
Woman’s Club does it – for the kids!
more scholarships… yeah… LA LA…
Manes for Movement co-founder Dr. Erin O’Mahoney.
Slaughter was followed by Dr. Erin O’Mahoney, of Redondo Beach, cofounder in 2018 of Manes for Movement, in Palos Verdes.
Manes for Movement offers hippotherapy for people with a wide range of debilitating physical and mental conditions. O’Mahoney quickly dispelled any skepticism about horse therapy by explaining how horseback riding stimulates neurons by mimicking a person’s gait. She also offered the more readily grasped explanation that “Horseback riding sparks joy.”
Hermosa Historical Society president Greg McNally.
O’Mahoney was followed by Greg McNally, president of the Hermosa Beach Historical Society. He did not have heart strings to play. Instead, he appealed to the audience’s civic mindedness. The society’s museum collections, far from the dusty remains of a distant past, is a place even teenagers walk away from impressed. Its collections include Noll, Jacobs, Weber and Bing surfboards from the Golden Era of Surfing, and the California Beach Volleyball Association (CBVA) records and memorabilia, including the current exhibit of beach volleyball photos, dating back five decades, by the recently deceased Hermosa Beach photographer Robi Hutas.
McNally said he hoped to use the grant to catalog and digitize the museum’s collections, which also include 50 years of Easy Reader photographs.
Hermosa Fine Arts director Don Adkins.
Don Adkins followed with a pitch for Hermosa Fine Arts. During high school and college, Adkins photographed soon to be famous LA rock bands, including Motley Crew. He credited his high school art classes for sparking the creativity that inspired his photography, and later his work as an engineer at TRW. Hermosa Fine Arts uses proceeds from its annual Hermosa Fine Arts Festival to fund art scholarships for students whose schools no longer offer the range of art programs Adkins enjoyed in the ‘70s, he said.
Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation director Chris Brown.
Chris Brown began his pitch for the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation by recalling the foundation’s namesake. Jimmy Miller and Brown were Mira Costa classmates who surfed the world’s best waves together. Miller became a lifeguard, and married a supermodel. Then he was injured, and couldn’t surf. A downward spiral followed, ending in suicide, Brown said.
Then Brown lost it, emotionally. He struggled to recover before his four minutes ran out. He did, but afterwards was chagrined by the lost time. He said he rehearsed his pitch at least 20 times to dull the memory.
Brown and Miller’s family responded to Jimmy Miller’s death by establishing a foundation to offer surf lessons to disadvantaged youths. The program evolved into “ocean therapy” for the Marines Wounded Warrior Battalion at Camp Pendleton, and most recently for health care workers recovering from the pandemic’s emotional costs.
The South Bay Boardriders director Doug Smith.
, who had the misfortune of following Robert Smith’s pitch for foster kids in 2019, this year had the misfortune of following Brown.
He began by mentioning the club works with the Jimmy Miller Foundation. SBBC was founded 12 years ago to host family-oriented, all ages surf contests. The club has grown to over 200 families, who participate in surf contests throughout the winter, and charitable events year round. Programs include beach clean ups, college scholarships, and assistance to financially distressed surfers, including surf shop employees laid off during the pandemic.
And like all of the presenters, Smith mentioned the intangibles that make his club’s work important. “It’s a place where surf kids can feel they belong,” he said.
Hermosa Sister City vice president George Barks.
George Barks, a former Hermosa Beach Councilman, current 66th Assembly District candidate, and Man of the Year the year Slaughter was Woman of the Year, was the evening’s midpoint speaker.
Barks pitched the Hermosa Sister City Association, founded in 1967. Since then, it has hosted student exchanges with its Baja sister city, Loreto, and facilitated paramedic training, and fire fighting equipment donations for Loreto, by Hermosa fire fighters.
The club is currently helping Loreto build a new foster children’s home.
The Sun Never Sets president Chelsea Ortega.
Like the Jimmy Miller Foundation, The Sun Never Sets Foundation was founded in response to a family tragedy, in this case a drug overdose. In 2017, Chelsea Ortega’s brother, Riley, a popular soccer player at Duke University, was prescribed opioids to deal with an injury.
Her foundation’s goal, she said, is to destigmatize addiction, so it is more quickly recognized, and treated.
Hermosa Chamber executive director Jessica Accamando.
Hermosa Beach Chamber CEO Jessica Accamando announced that the chamber recently created a foundation to establish new, community events, adding to the Chamber’s St. Patrick’s Parade, and the Labor Day and Memorial Day weekend festivals. The Chamber has seeded the foundation with a $10,000 grant. But the popular St. Patrick’s Parade, alone, which was welcomed back this weekend, costs the chamber $40,000, she noted.
Indivisible Art founder Rafael McMaster.
Indivisible Arts founder Rafael McMaster said his Resin Gallery offers art and creative consciousness programs to address the mental health crisis among youths. Last year, the program provided art-based, creative consciousness instruction to over 100 students. Its success, he said, can be measured by the letters of appreciation parents send him.
Hermosa Kiwanis president Rick Koenig.
Rick Koenig, the evening’s fourth Hermosa Man/Woman of the Year to speak, represented the century-old (founded 1920) Hermosa Kiwanis Club. Proceeds from its annual holiday tree lot help support 55 local charities, including most of that evening’s participants.
“A vote for Kiwanis is a vote for the whole community,” Koenig said.
Peter Zippi Memorial Foundation director Jeffrey Kardatzke.
The final pitch was from Peter Kardatzke, director of the Peter Zippi Fund. Zippi was a popular veterinarian at Coast Animal Hospital when died in a plane crash in 1977. After the hospital’s owner, Alice Villalobos, mailed Zippi’s parent’s their son’s last paycheck, the parents returned it with instructions to put the money to good use.
Since then, the Peter Zipp Fund has provided medical care and arranged adoptions for over 20,000 homeless pets. The fund has also prevented countless more homeless animals by offering spaying, and neutering.
Like “Shark Tank,” when the pitches ended, the judges voted for a single winner. Unlike “Shark Tank” the participants didn’t huddle alone, awaiting the results. The evening was more reunion than rivalry.
Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation Director Chris Brown accepts the $10,000 Quick Pitch Prize from Hermosa Friends Betsy Ryan and Ryan Nowicki.
The Friends voted to award the $10,000 grant to The Jimmy Miller Foundation. Following the check presentation, and congratulations, Ryan Nowicki announced the awarding of a second place grant of $5,000 for Manes for Movement, and $1,000 participant grants to the other 10 charities. The doubling of the grant money was courtesy of an anonymous donor, Nowicki said.
For more about the Hermosa Beach Friendship Foundation visit HermosaFriendsFoundation.org. ER