City honors program that feeds homeless

UNLV classroom discussion turns into community project

Advertisement

To most of his students and UNLV, Dean Dupalo is an adjunct faculty instructor in political science.

By night, he and a small band of volunteers conduct a small but determined effort to collect food and distribute it among several area charities.

So noteworthy is Dupalo's program that he was selected by Las Vegas Mayor Pro Team Gary Reese as Las Vegas' Citizen of the Month in April.

Since its founding last July, Dupalo said, tens of thousands of pastries and containers of coffee beans have been collected from a string of 13 Starbucks outlets.

"Over the past year, 10 or 11 months, we have collected about 70,000 pastries and (bags of coffee beans) between my coordinated efforts and all of the volunteers," he said. "The worth is about $140,000. The pastries are about $1.75 on average, and the coffee is about $8 a bag."

Dupalo and student Jose Miranda, a staff sergeant at Nellis Air Force Base, founded the operation when a discussion based on the classwork led them to the theme of community involvement. "We brainstormed," said Dupalo, "and sort of came up with this idea."

Miranda joked that the alternative was holding up banks to acquire charitable donations.

" 'No,' we said, 'we can't do that. We'd be no good at that.' So we thought, 'Let's go see what they do with these pastries.' We happened to be in a Starbucks for lunch, so we approached Kylene (Erquiaga) and asked the question, and it was just very positive. She was open, she was positive to it, she didn't shut us down."

Erquiaga is a Starbucks supervisor and jumped at the opportunity to take part in the proposed venture.

"Starbucks always takes great pride in contributing to the community," she said. "It helps put us out there a little more."

Twice a week, Dupalo & Co. show up to collect the goods, she said.

"It's mostly pastries, but once in a while I try to give them coffee beans if we have some extra," she said.

Deanne Lyles, manager of the Starbucks at 3805 E. Flamingo Road, said Starbucks' insistence on giving to the community would ensure the pastries and extra beans would be donated to some worthy organization.

"That's just one of the ways we give back ... It's a requirement that we partner with a charity," Lyles said.

Her store contributes about 200 to 250 pastries a week, said Dupalo.

"Overall, we get about 1,500 a week," Dupalo said.

Erquiaga, said Miranda, also gave Dupalo and him leads on other Starbucks that might be interested in making similar contributions.

"Kylene vouched for us," said Dupalo. "We looked presentable."

Three charities are recipients of the pastries and coffee: the Greater New Jerusalem Baptist Church, 1100 D St.; SAFE House, a shelter for domestic abuse victims at 921 American Pacific Drive in Henderson; and U.S. Vets at the Meadows Inn at 525 E. Bonanza Road, a provider of shelter and a variety of services to armed forces veterans.

Dupalo said several of the six volunteers, or "fingers," focus on the specific recipients, with student Melanie Coffee picking up pastries for the church at the Starbucks at 300 S. Fourth St.

"So that's one finger right there," he said.

Priscilla Primm, another student who volunteers as one of Dupalo's fingers, handles the Starbucks at 75 S. Valle Verde Drive and delivers the donated pastries to SAFE House.

The other volunteers sweep from the Starbucks at 2585 S. Nellis Blvd. to locations on Boulder Highway, along Flamingo Road, across to the Fashion Show Mall and to the lobby of the Hard Rock at 4455 Paradise Road.

The main recipient is the U.S. Vets at the Meadows Inn, where Dupalo said around 1,300 pastries are delivered each week.

"They have a cold kitchen," said Dupalo, but the staff manages to put together some snacks and continental breakfasts for the veterans.

Barely a half-dozen volunteers, including Miranda's wife Jennifer, do the heavy lifting.

"I just kind of grab 'em while I can," said Miranda. "I've kept it small, with people that I know I can depend on. We don't want to drop the ball."

"Keep it simple," said Dupalo. "We only missed one Friday in the last 10 months."

Dupalo and Miranda use their own vehicles and pay for their own gas.

"We also pay for the boxes we use and the wrap," Dupalo said.

Erquiaga said Starbucks also is involved with groups like March of Dimes and took part in the Santa Walk during last winter's Las Vegas Marathon. "I've been working with Dean since my previous store at Desert Inn and Eastern," she said.

"Kylene allowed us to continue," said Dupalo, "sort of like the key in the door."

He also cited shift supervisors Nicole Dineen, at the Hard Rock Starbucks, and Michael Lafayette, at the Starbucks at 5566 Boulder Highway, for major assistance.

Miranda had spent several years at Nellis when he got to know Dupalo and said the Air Force pushes for community involvement among its members.

"I was a part of this community," he said. "I didn't think I'd like doing it as much as I do."

Miranda said his supervisor at the base works with him to allow him time off for the Friday evening round-ups, but if duty calls later in the evening, so be it. Dupalo noted that no matter how late the pick-ups run Friday night, he's back in the classroom the following morning.

Dupalo said there have been moments of person-to-person contact with the recipients that were moving. Miranda agreed that the eye-to-eye contact -- actually seeing the reaction among the recipients when the pastries are handed over -- has meant a lot to him.

At last fall's Las Vegas Homeless Veterans Stand Down, Dupalo recalled, he and a student stood together in a serving line, handing out the pastries they had collected.

"It was direct as direct gets," said Dupalo. "We were looking in the faces of hundreds of homeless vets."