I am super excited to finally do some good work.  The feeling became A LOT stronger after I gave birth to my son. It really became so clear to me that all a child wants and needs is love from their parents. REALLY, that is all they truly need (ok maybe some food and water too) and it KILLS me that children come into this world and many times do not get that love and treatment they deserve. I honestly CAN’T understand how someone doesn’t love their child instantly, unconditionally and FOREVER but it happens. I want to help some of those children and the charity just came to me through the Chamber of Commerce I belong to. Not only am I helping the cause I sought out but I am also directly helping my local community and I am SUPER stoked about it.

The Dubnoff Center is a Day School and Group Home here in North Hollywood. It does such amazing things for kids with learning disabilities and homeless children.  The staff at the Dubnoff helps keep the boys out of trouble by give them tutoring, all kinds of activities and a roof over their head. The group home is a transition home that helps these teens they are housing to graduate and get full time employment so they can make it on their own once it is time to leave. It is just amazing.

There are 2 areas I am going to help out in.  I am so excited because they are the very 2 things I am most passionate about: interior design and healthy cooking/eating.  On the interior design front, I am going to get some of my interior designer friends and we are going to go in and give a much needed facelift to the 2 homes the kids live in. With all of our contacts and discounts we are going to make these homes real homes for the residents and I just can’t wait to jump into that project. On the cooking side, I am going to go into the homes and give a cooking lesson every other week.  These cooking classes will help them not only on how to cook but how to cook HEALTHY and inexpensively. By the end they will have their own recipe books to take with them into their real lives. I think it’s going to be so awesome. I know it’s not going to be easy but I am not doing this for it to be easy. I truly want to help and influence these kids for the better so if I can just get through to one I will be absolutely over the moon.

The Dubnoff Center is looking for dedicated and passionate people who would like to volunteer. They have SO many areas where they could use the help so if you’re interested contact Jana Harmon. Here is a link to their website.

Stay tuned for some updates.

Looking forward to the growing experience,

Eleni