Kitchen pays off mortgage
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Alicia Robinson
With Southern California real estate prices, owning your own space is
becoming harder and harder, but Merle Hatleberg has finally done it.
The 82-year-old founder of Someone Cares Soup Kitchen was able to
pay off the mortgage on her West 19th Street building in full, and
two years early, with a donation from one of her biggest fans.
“I don’t think I’ve come off my plateau yet,” Hatleberg said
Wednesday.
The 19-year-old soup kitchen has been in its current location
since 1996.
At the organization’s annual fundraiser Saturday, Hatleberg
received a $45,000 check from Ed Eaton, who has his own success
story. After coming to California in 1986 with empty pockets, Eaton
started 123 Loan, a mortgage lending business that now has 300
employees nationwide. Once he made his fortune, Eaton and his wife,
Holly, started the philanthropic Eaton Family Foundation.
“We want to make our own backyard a better place,” said Eaton, who
lives in Newport Beach.
The foundation paid the remaining $42,000 or so on the soup
kitchen’s mortgage. Hatleberg hopes to put the rest of the money
toward expanding a tutoring program for children that now takes place
at the soup kitchen.
Eaton recently donated 25 computers to the tutoring program and
plans to help Hatleberg realize her dream of a separate facility so
the program can serve at least double the 45 children who use it now.
“Until she could bring completion to paying the building off,
she’s not in a position that she could expand the school,” Eaton
said.
The community has been largely supportive of Hatleberg’s efforts,
she said, because she tries to be a good neighbor by making sure soup
kitchen guests eat and then leave instead of loitering in the
neighborhood.
It’s been popular, serving about 300 people a day. An August 2004
survey of soup kitchen visitors showed 76% of those responding live
in Costa Mesa.
“They serve nutritious food. You can get seconds if you want,”
said Joseph Smith, a Costa Mesa resident who was eating lunch at the
soup kitchen Wednesday. “It’s nice.”
Although the soup kitchen has had its critics over the years,
Hatleberg said she just invites them to come see what she’s doing.
“I try to make them a believer that, yes, it is needed,” she said.
“Every city needs a place to help the unfortunate.”
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