Serato a Hero to Volleyball Players and Kids

B.J. Hoeptner Evans
Manager, Media Relations and Publications
Phone: (719) 228-6800
E-Mail: bj.evans@usav.org

You can vote for Bruno Serato to be CNN's 2011 Hero of the Year at CNNHeroes.com.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Nov. 6, 2011) – Every day after practice at the American Sports Centers in Anaheim, Calif., members of the U.S. Men’s and Women’s National Volleyball Teams head for lunch in their practice gear or sweats.

They eat at a restaurant close to the practice facility. It is the same restaurant that has served such celebrities as Madonna, David Beckham and former U.S. presidents Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush.

It is also the same restaurant that serves free dinners to up to 300 homeless children per day in Anaheim.

The restaurant is the Anaheim White House, which is owned and operated by Bruno Serato. A native of Italy, Serato has been feeding the players since the U.S. Men’s team moved to Anaheim in 2006. The women started eating there when they moved in 2009.

“The City of Anaheim came to us six years ago,” Serato remembered. “They did not have any restaurant to feed them after daytime training. The City of Anaheim asked us to help sponsor them.”

A year prior to that, Serato started feeding a very different, but just as important group of clientele.

As the story goes, in 2005, Bruno and his mother, Caterina, who was visiting from Italy, visited the Boys and Girls Club of Anaheim, where Bruno was on the board of directors. Caterina noticed that there was a 6-year old boy eating potato chips for dinner, because his family couldn't afford a proper meal. She insisted that Bruno make some pasta for the child.

They soon realized that there were many more of these hungry “motel children,” so Bruno began making pasta for 72 children, five nights a week. Today, that event has now expanded to feeding nearly 300 kids, seven nights a week and over a quarter of a million meals.

When the economy took a turn for the worse in 2008, the number of diners at Bruno’s restaurant went down, while the number of homeless kids needing a meal increased. But Bruno’s dedication to the kids, and to the volleyball players, never faltered.

Photo: Courtesy of the Anaheim White House Rich Lambourne, left, and David Lee get ready to serve up some pasta. “The amount of money he spends and the quality of food has not gone down from when we first got that sponsorship,” said U.S. Men’s player Scott Touzinsky (St. Louis, Mo.). “It’s bizarre. He puts us right next to all the people who are spending hundreds of dollars on their meal.”

Bruno’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. He has been profiled in People Magazine and on the CBS Evening News.

This year, CNN recognized Bruno as one of its "Top 10 Heroes" of the year. Each of the top 10 will receive a $50,000 grant and be honored at "CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute," a globally broadcast event that airs Dec. 11 at 5 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET).

One of the top 10 will be voted CNN Hero of the Year by the public and receive an additional $250,000.

Through Dec. 7, people can vote for Serato at CNNHeroes.com.

“It would help me expand my efforts and feed more children,” Serato said of the prize money. “I could help some families move up to an apartment.”

After the U.S. Men’s Volleyball Team won the gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, several of the players helped Serato feed the motel kids.

“We always hear about the kids coming in, but we don’t get to meet them and feed them,” Touzinsky said. “When he asked us to feed them, for us it was like, ‘Yeah, for sure.’

“The biggest thing for me was seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces.”

Tags: mobile, Scott Touzinsky, U.S. Men's National Volleyball Team, U.S. Women's National Volleyball Team