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By Ann K. Williams

October 20 -- Santa Monica’s elite got a lesson in redemption and grace from 22 former street people, as they met beneath the crystal chandeliers of the Fairmont Miramar Hotel ballroom Friday Morning.

The 13th annual Celebrating Success awards breakfast honoring individuals who’ve rebuilt their lives against great odds was sponsored by the Westside Shelter and Hunger Coalition, (WSHC), a 25-year-old alliance of local service agencies.

“Why do we do this?” asked John Maceri, WSHC chair and Executive Director of the Ocean Park Community Center (OPCC).

“We believe in the dignity and worth of every human being,” Maceri said. “We do not see this as a faceless problem.”

He was followed by 22 honorees, some of whom told personal stories of their climb up from hopelessness.

They were introduced by actress and humanitarian Wendie Malick, familiar to television viewers for her roles in “Jake in Progress,” “Just Shoot Me” and “Frazier.”

“More people are on the verge of slipping into poverty than any of us can remember in our lifetime,” Malick said. “This room is living proof that L. A. has a heart.”

Common to all the honorees was gratitude for the agencies which helped them and an unselfish willingness to give back what was given to them.

“There was a time when I honestly believed I would not be able to survive outside the confines of a psychiatric ward,” said Rene Buchanan, a “class of 2004” honoree and one of this year’s award presenters.

She thanked “OPCC’s Daybreak which empowered me to find my own voice.” Buchanan now works with the mentally ill homeless women who are Daybreak’s clientele.

“These women are my purpose, my inspiration, my hope,” Buchanan said.

“New Directions has saved my life,” Lynn Johnson said of the residential treatment center that took her in after she’d hit rock bottom following the death of her 20-year old daughter.

“I had lost everything that had any meaning for my life,” the former stay-at-home wife and mother said. Today, she works as the receptionist at New Directions.

“I don’t mourn my life now,” Johnson said. “I’ve learned how to be unselfish. Today I stand here with a lot of pride.”

And Manuel Negrete expressed gratitude for Phoenix house, which accepted him on his release from prison, where he’d served two terms for the drug sales that supported his crystal meth habit.

“I was tired of feeling guilty and ashamed,” Negrete explained.

He also thanked Common Ground, the HIV community center he works with now, because it “empowered me to be a better person, not just for me, but for other people.”

Others were recognized for their contributions to the area’s less fortunate.

State Senator Sheila Kuehl was given WSHC’s Community Partner Award.

“Senator Kuehl has been a tireless advocate for affordable health care,” as well as “housing and health services for the homeless and low income people,” Maceri said as he presented the award.

“Senator Kuehl is a woman of vision, compassion and leadership,” Maceri said.

Though she wasn’t able to attend the event, Kuehl responded in writing.

“Over the years, the Coalition and I have worked to shape state policies and to direct funding to local agencies to provide critical services and necessary housing to homeless individuals so that every person could have a real chance to live a safe, productive and satisfying life,” Kuehl wrote.

“I’m very grateful for that,” she wrote.

Also recognized were a dozen local organizations, from the Parish of Saint Matthew to Whole Foods Market, from Homeless Not Toothless to Google, to name a few.

Finally, the California Community Corporation joined the Bayside District Corporation to give $7,000 each to Chrysalis and the West Side Food Bank. This money came largely from the dolphin banks on the Third Street Promenade, which give visitors an alternative to handing change to the homeless.

As the awards closed with the New Directions Choir performing Amazing Grace, the words to the old hymn seemed to take on new meaning, both for the remarkable men and women who’d climbed up out of darkness, and for the audience which had come to honor them.

“I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”