For a single mom and her three kids who lost their home and belongings in a fire earlier this year, meals are on the house this month. “Like my daughter said, now I can take a break from cooking for a little bit,” said Kenya Ceballos.
Instead they’ll be dining regularly at Olive Garden Restaurant in Secaucus, which donated a Family Pasta Pass, enabling the four of them to eat as many meals as they want, as often as they’d like, in any Olive Garden restaurant through Nov. 22.
“At Olive Garden we stand by families,” said General Manager Maribel Gregory in presenting Ceballos with a voucher for free meals.
Also receiving an individual Never Ending Pasta Pass was longtime Secaucus resident James Priest, 60, a veteran who was raised in St. Joseph’s Village for dependent children and recently had been struggling to find a job.
The recipients were selected by Mayor Michael Gonnelli and Lisa Snedeker, director of senior and community services for the town, after Gregory came to them with the idea of giving out the free passes.
Olive Garden created the Never Ending Pasta Pass last year to sell to diners during a special promotional period. Every location was also given the opportunity to give away an individual and a family pass, and Gregory jumped at the chance.
Priest and the Ceballos family were invited to a meal at the restaurant on Oct. 5, where they were surprised with the passes.
“I almost cried,” said Ceballos. “I had to hold it back. I’ll tell you, I loved this town before the fire happened, and after the fire I love it even more.”
Town support after the fire
The Ceballos family moved to Secaucus from North Bergen in 2010 after Kenya separated from her children’s father. Leafing through the Secaucus Reporter, she found an apartment on the second floor of a house and the family quickly became close with the owner, Ana Brandt, a corporate vice president at SalSon Logistics, a trucking company in Newark.
“She became part of our family,” said Ceballos. “When I lost my job, she got me a new job” as a billing clerk at SalSon. “That year, 2010, I had a lot of changes in my life.”
“I’ll tell you, I loved this town before the fire happened, and after the fire I love it even more.” –Kenya Ceballos
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The town put them up in a motel for a few nights, with the help of the Red Cross. Then the mayor arranged with Immaculate Conception Church for Ceballos and her children – Kendryck, 15, Keyra, 7, and Kenley, 2 – to stay in a convent behind the church, where they lived for nearly three months before finding a new home about three blocks from their old one.
Secaucus residents pitched in to help the family through their difficulties. “His friends at school and the parents and everybody, they got together and they got us the essential supplies like uniforms for the kids,” said Ceballos. “And little by little things are getting back together. We’re getting furniture. The town helped a lot.”
Despite the hardships, Ceballos remains positive and upbeat. “I’m not going to solve anything just moping around. Plus I had three reasons to keep going,” she said, smiling at her children. “Something bad happened, we got displaced, but I can’t really complain. We got an apartment, the town helped me out, my kids are happier. Things are coming along, little by little.”
Help to find a job
James Priest was the second of three children, with an older sister and younger brother. He attended St. Joseph’s Village in Rockleigh, an institution for “nearly 200 dependent children who through various misfortunes have been unable to live in a normal home situation,” according to their website.
In 1968 he moved into the house he still occupies on Maple Street in Secaucus, and began seventh grade at Lincoln Junior High, before attending Weehawken High School, as Secaucus students did before the high school was built. One year behind him at Weehawken High was Michael Gonnelli.
Beginning in 1985 Priest served in the U.S. military at Fort Sill, Okla. and Fort Polk, La., leaving in 1988. “My dad was not well,” he recalled. “We lost him shortly after I went home.”
After the service Priest worked for Acme and for various trucking and consolidation firms. When those jobs dried up he found himself struggling to find a new job in an economy that valued youth and computer skills, which he didn’t have.
“But I got my resume done by social services,” he said. “The town’s been trying to help me out. They told me, ‘This is what you want to do in the interview process.’”
Through their assistance he got placed with the temp agency Ranstad, which found him a short-term position as a machine loader on the overnight shift at Broadridge Financial Solutions in Secaucus.
“We print the brochures you get for quarterly statements from your bank and stuff,” he said. “When I’m finished with this commitment with Ranstad, [Broadridge] is interested in hiring me.”
The free Pasta Pass came out of nowhere and took him completely by surprise. “Maribel said that Olive Garden believes in giving back to the community,” said a clearly overwhelmed Priest. “This is great.”
Part of the community
Gregory sat with the Ceballos family in a comfortable nook in the restaurant, chatting while they enjoyed their meal, filling up on everything from soup and salad to dessert. (Breadsticks with meat sauce were a particular favorite.)
She had met the family before, when their former landlord brought them in to celebrate Kendryck’s birthday. Her son Tyler joined her at the table and quickly bonded with Kendryck over their joint love of singing. “He wanted to be here,” she said. “He wanted to see when they get it.”
Gregory has worked for Olive Garden for nearly 20 years, first in California before transferring to Secaucus. The company’s charitable giving is very important to her.
“It’s one of the reasons why I work for them,” she said. “Not very many companies out there are like this. We want to be part of the community. We do a lot of different fundraisers with schools, sports. It’s a great company to work for. It’s personally rewarding.”
“She does a lot more than this,” said Gonnelli. “She donates to the food pantry. She volunteers. We just had a big donation and were sorting clothes. She volunteered the whole day. She does a lot. It’s a relationship that these guys have forged.”
Art Schwartz may be reached at arts@hudsonreporter.com.