A Night of Celebration and Encouragement

I feel very fortunate to live in a place that I love. And I’m not alone. On Thursday night, I attended the annual Montrose-Verdugo City Chamber of Commerce community awards dinner. Held at the Oakmont Country Club, the evening focused on the many nationwide companies that began in Glendale. (People sometimes forget that Montrose is part of the City of Glendale.) Among these was the Baskin-Robbins ice cream company.

As a small business owner, it was encouraging for me to learn of the growth of that company that was started in 1945 by Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins. It was in a little shop on South Adams in Glendale that they launched their dream that, over the years, has grown into one of the world’s largest chains of ice cream specialty stores. The company was presented with the Legacy Award and, to accept it, were the sister of Robbins, Elka Weiner, and the widow of Baskins (also the sister of Robbins), Shirley Baskin Familian. It was awesome to see these two ladies – both in their 90s – make their way to the stage to accept the award and to share some of their insights as to the birth of the company.

Another awardee on Thursday was the nation’s oldest bookstore, Once Upon A Time. Honoree Maureen Palacios was presented with the Community Endearment Award, a well-deserved recognition considering that the bookstore seemed doomed to closure when the previous owner and store founder Jane Humphrey decided to sell. But with the encouragement of her daughter Jessica (who wrote a letter to the LA Times lamenting the possible sale of her favorite bookstore), Maureen decided to leap from book buyer to store owner. Like me, she is a small business owner of a women-owned business and I am encouraged by her journey in a time when the mantra “print is dead” is too often said by the uninformed.

If you have read the articles by Melinda Clarke, MVCOC executive director, you are already familiar with the other honorees. Congratulations to them all and the hard work that they do every day to make the Crescenta Valley an enviable place to live.

I must also give a shout-out to the ceremony itself. It was organized much like “big name” awards shows; i.e., the Academy Awards and Grammys. Descriptions were given of some of the awardees by a woman off to the side of the dining room and the evening was also emceed by Keith Hobbs, chief executive officer of USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. Keith is a local, too, having attended Fremont Elementary School and Rosemont Middle School and is a graduate of Crescenta Valley High School. The attendees also got a peak at young Keith when pictures of him growing up were flashed on the screen during dinner.

All in all it was a “feel good” night. I left encouraged by the stories I heard and with the knowledge that all businesses, regardless of how they started or how far they go, have their ups and downs – you just have to push on.

  robin goldsworthy