Someone Cares Soup Kitchen names new leader, after 3 generations in same family

Los Angeles Times

6 days ago

For the last 39 years, operation of Someone Cares Soup Kitchen in Costa Mesa has been a family affair, led by the woman who founded it with a hot plate and a soup pot and, in later years, her granddaughter.
Under matriarch Merle Hatleberg, who served up healthy meals daily for residents in need from 1986 until her death in 2007, and Shannon Santos, who assumed the massive undertaking, as well as an on-site tutoring program, the organization's mission and reach far exceeded the implications of its name.
Today, the organization serves healthy, balanced meals to as many as 300 people each day, many of them families living on the city's west side. A Saturday food distribution allows recipients to select fresh produce in a farmers market style, while K-4 students from nearby Pomona Elementary receive homework help through a referral process.
But in recent years, the future of the organization was not so clear. Santos struggled with health complications caused by congestive heart failure, the same condition that afflicted Hatleberg in her final years. On June 1, Santos died in her Huntington Beach home. She was 59.
Someone Cares' six-member board was not sure who could replace the vast institutional knowledge Santos and Hatleberg had acquired over their decades of love and service to the community. Who would be able to lead the organization and potentially foster its continued expansion?
Luckily, help was found not too far outside the family. Adam Ereth, a former Costa Mesa planning commissioner who was serving as Someone Cares programs director, was recently named executive director, initially in an interim capacity. He started in the position on June 23.
An environmental consultant, Ereth started volunteering at the soup kitchen at around age 6 or 7, visiting regularly with mom Rachel Perry, a devout community service maven who ran a local production business and used the enterprise to solicit cans of food for Someone Cares on an ongoing basis.
'We'd rent a U-haul and deliver these 55-gallon barrels full of cans about 15 or 20 times a year to restock the pantry,' Ereth, 41, recalled in an interview Tuesday. 'When I got to high school, I did all my community service hours at Someone Cares — Merle would sign off on the hours.'
It was later, while earning his doctorate in public health at USC, that Ereth developed the site's COVID guidelines at a time when even official agencies were struggling to determine policies and best practices.
'We started creating a new food distribution model, where we were building food boxes and going out into the community to deliver those,' he said. 'So during COVID, we actually flourished.'
Ereth shortly thereafter became programs director for the 19th Street facility, helping secure grant funding while overseeing the organization's social media, marketing and fundraising efforts.
Debbee Pezman, Hatleberg's daughter and Santos' aunt, has served on the board of Someone Cares for more than 20 years. She recalled her initial thought after her niece's passing was that Someone Cares might have to temporarily be shuttered while the tiny board determined how to fill a leadership vacuum.
'I thought maybe we'll close for two weeks, regroup and figure out what to do,' the San Clemente resident said Thursday. 'Then I got there and saw the people having community — there were seniors sitting there eating and talking, a couple of ladies were knitting — and I thought, what am I talking about closing for?'
Pezman called an emergency meeting of the board and its advisers, and members put their heads together. Ereth's name came up as a possible successor.
'Adam is amazing,' she said, praising his innate sense of service, passion and intellect. 'He's super politically savvy in the city. My mom was too, and so was Shannon — I have 100% confidence in Adam.'
The same confidence resonates among Someone Cares' volunteer base, including retired engineer Mike Lingle. The Costa Mesa resident responded to an ad in the Daily Pilot about 11 or 12 years ago seeking volunteers for the nonprofit and remains there to this day.
Lingle said Hatleberg and Santos' legacy will never be forgotten in the building the soup kitchen has called home for the last 28 years. A mural including larger-than-life portraits of the two women figures prominently at the location.
'Shannon was friendly with all the volunteers, from retired folks like me to high school or college kids,' he recalled of Santos. 'She was always super friendly and smiling whenever anyone came in.'
A board member of the nonprofit Costa Mesa Alliance for Better Streets, Lingle has worked with Ereth as a former planning commissioner and befriended him at the soup kitchen as well.
'He's an incredibly thoughtful person who always seems to be looking five moves ahead. And he's got a lot of energy,' he said Wednesday.
Ereth acknowledged he has incredibly big shoes to fill as executive director of a group led by three generations of strong, service-minded women. Still, he feels up to the task.
'Shannon was a friend of mine. I'd known her since I was a little kid,' he said of Santos. 'The mission of our organization reflects how she felt as a person, giving back to the community and making sure people were cared for — it's literally in the name. We all share in that mission and vision to continue on with this and to fill the need when we see it pop up in the community.'