When Otto Rafael Peñarredonda went to visit his homeland of Colombia for the first time since immigrating to the United States as a child, he was taken aback by the levels of poverty he saw. While driving through Cartagena, he couldn’t stop thinking about the children who were being born into a failing system and were unlikely to ever escape it.
Once returning to Long Beach, the business owner decided to do something about it. He founded his nonprofit Colombia De Mi Corazón in 2010, which now provides food, clothing, education and other resources to an orphanage in Cúcuta, and it’s the first of many Peñarredonda hopes to fund.
To kickstart the creation of another orphanage in his hometown Barranquilla, Peñarredonda’s business Otto’s Pizza Stix is raffling off a rare luxury 2005 Jaguar S-Type R.
“For myself, it’s about this foundation. I just want to be able to help as many kids as I can,” Peñarredonda said. “I feel at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you have kids or not, at the end of the day, you have a responsibility to add to others. I feel that that’s all I’m trying to do.”
The car was previously owned by Peñarredonda’s close friend Michael Petell who died last year after battling cancer. Petell was a strong supporter of Colombia De Mi Corazón and a lifelong Jaguar enthusiast. The car has been restored to pristine condition with new tires, a new fuel pump, new exhaust, tinted windows and blacked-out wheels.
Tickets are being sold for $100 per entry, as Peñarredonda hopes to raise at least $25,000 by selling 250 tickets. As of Dec. 28, 50 tickets have been sold. In order for the raffle to proceed, Peñarredonda must meet the reserve number of 200 tickets sold.
“If nothing else, the car is [either] going to be raffled off or I’m gonna sell it outright. I got people offering me money for it, I just haven’t sold it,” Peñarredonda said. “I’m committed to do the raffle. I’ve never done it before and I know that my lifelong friend and brother is smiling down. He was 100% behind our foundation so it’s very personal to me. Once the car’s gone the foundation is still going to be here so the more exposure we can bring to that the better.”
For the past three years, the orphanage in Cúcuta and Colombia De Mi Corazón has been fully funded by Otto’s Pizza Stix. The business sells handmade walk-around pizza products, a doughy handheld concoction filled with mozzarella cheese, marinara sauce and various meat and vegetable options. It was the first business Pañarredonda founded in Long Beach in 1988, and he revitalized the product in 2016 with the hopes to market it to distributors in order to support the orphanage.
Peñarredonda said the more people that know about the nonprofit, the more they will want to help expand the vision and help more children in Colombia.
Colombia de mi Corazón currently supports 12 children through their orphanage. Peñarredonda is hoping to open another location in 2023.
“We have 12 kids right now; the end objective for me is to add as many kids as I can to that which means there is no ceiling at all,” Pañarredonda said. “It could be hundreds or in the thousands. We can do that, but I can’t fund it by myself to get to that point.”
Tickets for the Jaguar S-Type R raffle can be purchased at donatecdmc.org. If enough tickets are sold, the raffle will take place on Jan. 15 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Xpress Automotive at 4390 E. Anaheim St. Additional items will be raffled off on-site.
Bluebook value is closer to $8K.