Hospitality Management Students Team With Charles Oakley to Address Area Hunger

As part of the NBA All-Star Game festivities this past weekend, culinary students from Tri-C's Hospitality Management program teamed with retired NBA all-star Charles Oakley for several events benefiting his foundation, which assists area residents in need.

One event was Oakley's annual "Oak Out Hunger" campaign, which assists residents of Cleveland's Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry. Oakley leads the campaign, which helps those in Cleveland and other cities, through the Charles Oakley Foundation. He started the nonprofit in 2018 to organize fundraisers and community-building activities that help impoverished and underprivileged communities.

Hospitality Management students, along with Tri-C faculty and staff, assisted in food preparation, cooking and event planning over the course of the all-star weekend, which also included the Oakley Foundation brunch held Sunday at The Madison event venue in Cleveland.

Among those attending were Tri-C Executive Vice President and Provost Karen Miller, Interim Westshore Campus President Janice Taylor Heard, Hospitality Management Associate Dean Karen Monath and U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge.

Oakley, a Cleveland native, was drafted by the Cavaliers in 1985 and subsequently traded to the Chicago Bulls. He played 19 NBA seasons, mainly for the Bulls, New York Knicks and Toronto Raptors. He was instrumental in bringing recently inducted Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer Ben Wallace to Tri-C in 1992.

To learn more, click here to watch a Fox 8 segment.

February 22, 2022

By Erik Cassano, 216-687-3577 erik.cassano@tri-c.edu