Community Service - Flag football

This year, Todd Newell, Financial Advisor Associate Vice President – Investments, coached in the Santee NFL Flag football club for Boys’ Grades first and second. Todd’s team went 4-1 on the season and made it to the finals, narrowly losing the championship. Todd enjoys giving back to the next generation of football players by passing along the skills and techniques he developed over fifteen years growing up in the sport. Todd is noted having said, “I was blessed with three wonderful daughters who have no interest in playing football so it is my distinct honor to coach the next generation of young men to be competitors and practitioners of the sport with the help and support of their parents and the community at large.” Previously, Todd has coached one year of Pop Warner football in Redondo Beach for boys ages thirteen and fourteen.

Todd is a San Diego native and started playing full contact Pop Warner football at age ten for the Balboa Raiders. He played all five Pop Warner years with the Balboa Raiders before playing football at his alma mater, St. Augustine High School. At St. Augustine, Todd went on to be the one of the top running backs in San Diego county and played at the CIF Division 3 championship against Marian Catholic (currently Mater Dei), at former Qualcomm Stadium. Todd received a full Division One athletic and academic scholarship to the United States Air Force Academy and continued his football career there. He graduated the US Air Force Academy having gone to two bowl games—the Armed Forces Bowl versus Cal Berkley (2008) and the Armed Forces Bowl versus Houston (2009).

Heroes Linked

Peter Mero Senior Vice President-Investments & Senior PIM Portfolio Manager and Mark Walton Managing Director – Investments & Senior PIM Portfolio Manager attended a big fundraiser for Heroes Linked at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. The honored guest was actor Gary Sinise, who has made a powerful impact among many veteran’s groups including his own foundation. Heroes Linked provides a national network of volunteer advisors to help veterans when they leave the military to find rewarding and satisfying careers. 200,000 servicemen and women leave the military each year so there is a great need to link these veterans with career opportunities.

Tecate Charity

Joris, along with other parishioners of St. Charles Borromeo in Point Loma, went to Mexico near the Colonial slums of Tecate to help organize and provide essential items to over 400 families in need. These are families that scavenge the dump for items to sell. In addition to the Christmas push, Joris will be going to Colonia this year to learn about how the community at large could benefit from additional planning and civic improvement.

Food Bank Volunteer

Mark and his family joined more than a dozen other volunteers over the holidays to help pack bags and boxes of food for the FIND Food Bank. FIND focuses on distributing healthy food to families in need throughout southern California. FIND delivers the food directly to families and to soup kitchens, food pantries, and religious and non-profit organizations. Food insecurity is a major problem and finding healthy food has become even more difficult for many people to afford. The work of the FIND Food Bank has been critical in addressing the needs that many families have.

Million Meals Event

Mark and his wife, Lynette, joined close to three thousand other volunteers at Cathedral Catholic High School to pack meal kits to help feed more than a million impoverished families. These are high nutrition, easy to prepare packets that go mostly to the families in Tijuana, but some are sent to families in the Ukraine and Ecuador. The event was such a success the volunteers packed a million meals in less than two days!