Marin nonprofit celebrates Novato campus expansion

Homeward Bound of Marin has nearly completed its two-year, $38 million project of expanding its Novato campus that provides housing and job training to people who were homeless.

All that’s left is the nonprofit’s pet project: a dog park for tenants.

The 51-year-old organization held a ceremonial opening Thursday for the Dennis and Susan Gilardi Training and Events Center in the Hamilton neighborhood.

The 10,800-square-foot center includes a commercial bakery that produces dog treats sold in 150 stores in California, a culinary classroom and two rooms that can be rented for gatherings.

“This is a community hub,” Paul Fordham, the organization’s chief executive officer, said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “For us, this is what a community looks like.”

The Gilardi center neighbors a 24-apartment site for military veterans and a 26-apartment site for families and working tenants. Both complexes opened in the past year. All 50 apartments are occupied, said Maura Thurman, the nonprofit’s communications coordinator.

“It’s really starting to feel like a neighborhood of people living their lives — kids, veterans and people who work,” Thurman said.

Residents joke that the campus has become so large they need golf carts to get around, she said.

Homeward Bound of Marin raised more than $37 million in private, state and federal funding for the campus project. Contributions include $14 million in state grants and $2 million from Marin County.

The nonprofit is now seeking to raise $300,000 to pay off debt.

“If any one of you has $300,000 lying around …” Fordham joked at the ceremony.

The center is named after a Marin philanthropic couple who donated to the organization. Susan Gilardi said the complex gives hope and purpose to people who struggled with homelessness.

The organization has “social enterprise” businesses that are staffed with paid employees who were once homeless. The businesses include Wagster Treats and Fresh Starts Chef Events.

The new center’s classroom kitchen includes large video screens that show closeup shots of a teacher’s cutting board. The organization plans to invite the public to enroll in cooking classes this fall.

Andrew Wild, the cooking program’s lead instructor, demonstrated to visitors how to prepare a carrot soup with spring herbs on Thursday. In the program, students undergo 11 weeks of training on cooking skills and kitchen management.

Wild recalled how the culinary program transformed the lives of many students, including a former Marin teacher who became homeless after losing her job. She graduated from Fresh Starts and she teaches at a culinary program in Maine.

Wild said his reward as a teacher is “seeing the enthusiasm on the students’ faces.”

“They’re seeing things that they didn’t think they were capable of doing,” he said.

While cooking his soup, Wild introduced two dozen onlookers to Eugene Cooper, nicknamed “Speedy” for his fast work in the kitchen. The 52-year-old student, a sous chef in the Fresh Starts kitchen, plans to continue working in kitchens after he graduates from the program.

“Hopefully, I’ll get the opportunity to do better for myself,” Cooper said.

Fordham said one program graduate is working at a Hawaii restaurant owned by chef and television personality Tyler Florence.

“We’re trying to create a nurturing environment where we work with people to overcome their past traumas of homelessness or being in prison or whatever happened to them, and help them heal from that and realize there is potential,” Fordham said. “If we can support you to grow, what can you become?”

During the opening party, Fresh Starts employee Zack Wood offered beverages in one of the new community meeting rooms. He learned culinary and leadership skills from the program when he was living at the organization’s shelter.

“We’re a big family,” Wood said.

Marin County Supervisor Eric Lucan, speaking at the ceremony, said kitchens are “where life happens.”

“There’s a place of togetherness, there’s a place of camaraderie,” he said. “It’s a place of coming together as a community, and it’s especially true here.”

One of the meeting places at the center is named “Max’s Legacy.” Marion Weinreb, a board member for Homeward Bound of Marin, spoke about her late son Max, who enjoyed bringing meals to homeless people and serving Thanksgiving dinners at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco.

Weinreb, quoting her son, said: “It’s not what you do to get paid, it’s who you feed.”