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# SM residents to be honored
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/sm-residents-to-be-honored/
- Published: 2005-05-03T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T06:53:06.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Community, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless

*By Daily Press staff*

Longtime Santa Monica residents Blase and Theresa Bonpane of the Office of the Americas will receive the “Hope Through Empowerment Award” at the 2005 St. Joseph Center Dinner Dance and Auctions at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Saturday, May 7, from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. The Bonpanes have been giving support to the center for homeless and low-income men, women and children for the past 29 years.

Recognized by the Los Angeles Weekly as “the most underrated Humanist of the past decade,” Blase Bonpane has dedicated his life to peace and justice in this hemisphere and beyond. A Maryknoll priest in Guatemala in the 1960s, Blase Bonpane became inspired to become an active educator and tireless advocate for human rights.

Theresa Killeen Bonpane was a Maryknoll sister in Southern Chile in the 1960s, where she served as principal of a high school and became involved in social activism on behalf of the local farm workers. Together, in 1983, the Bonpanes founded the Office of the Americas, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting social awareness through broad-based educational outreach, citizen action and nonviolence.

Funds collected from the Dinner Dance will help support St. Joseph Center’s 10 programs that serve more than 7,000 homeless and low-income individuals and families on the Westside each year by providing emergency services, food distributions, child care, mentoring, job training and senior services. For more information call (310) 396- 6468, ext. 328.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 3, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/050305.pdf?ref=smdp.com)