Khurshida Begum, President of the ASHHO Cultural Community Center (CCC) in Tumwater, has been named 2022 Business Person of the Year by the Tumwater Rotary Club. Tumwater Rotary will present its award to Khurshida at noon on June 29th at Rivers Edge Restaurant in Tumwater.
The roots of the CCC lie in the catering and meal donation program Khurshida launched as the COVID pandemic took over our lives in 2020. Her “buy one, give one” program enabled homebound residents in our region to not only get tasty, affordable dinner meals for their families. She doubled the impact as her pricing included providing an equal number of meals to nonprofits serving low-income and vulnerable people in our community. These hot meals were provided through numerous organizations, including TOGETHER, Family Education and Support Center, Community Youth Services, and Family Support Center. This business and donation program generated meals for thousands across our urban region over the past year.
As pointed out by Olympia Rotarian, Paul Knox, “Khurshida initiated the CCC in 2020 after working with a Seattle social venture consulting group to develop the business plan to launch. She worked closely with and gained the support of the owners of the former Pellegrino Event Center to re-open the building after its pandemic closure. The CCC has hosted many community, business, and private events and has become one of the destination places to go in Tumwater. She adroitly developed funders from all sectors and has plans to initiate a sister 501(c)3 organization to provide workforce training opportunities in the newly opened CCC café.”
ASHHO, under Khurshida’s guidance, delivers training and meeting space for local youth-focused nonprofit programs like Together!, Community Youth that helps Tumwater Community Schools, and Host Homes to support unaccompanied houseless Tumwater youth.
Each year, Tumwater Rotary honors a Tumwater business whose work reflects the service club’s “Service Above Self” mission by providing service to others, promoting integrity, and advancing world understanding, goodwill, and peace through fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders.
