Ann Navarra\u2019s commitment to the City of Hope West Coast Golf and Tennis Tournament came full circle this year. In 2001, Navarra was named the first honoree and helped to raise about $250,000 for the cancer treatment and research center. Ten years later, her family\u2019s company, San Diego-based Jerome\u2019s Furniture, was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award. A former candy-striper at Mercy Hospital, Navarra found comfort helping a cause that hit so close to home. At the end of June, the La Jolla resident will celebrate 20 years as a cancer survivor. “I was one of the lucky ones,” Navarra said. More than a half-million dollars was raised this year for City of Hope, the biggest sum in the event\u2019s history. The annual tennis and golf tournament, held this year on June 7 at Cota de Caza\u2019s Golf and Racquet Club, brings together some of the furniture industry\u2019s biggest rivals each year. “You have [furniture] competitors next to one another, but it\u2019s a day where everyone comes together and the camaraderie is wonderful,” Navarra said. “It is heart-warming because the competition has stopped and you\u2019re just friends for the cause and enjoying the moment. It\u2019s a very special, special day each year.” New honorees are named annually. They serve to rally the community to raise funds for City of Hope. “Each year, everybody works hard, whether it\u2019s a retailer or a manufacturer. [Honorees] could be an individual, it could be a company. This year, they recognized the [Navarra] family and [Jerome\u2019s CEO] Lee Goodman,” Navarra said. City of Hope\u2019s National Home Furnishings Industry Group honored the Navarra family and Goodman for more than 50 hours of community service and philanthropic events over the last five decades. Navarra\u2019s mother and father opened Jerome\u2019s Furniture in 1954 and kept the family in the business. The third generation has just joined the team, though today there are more employees than family working in Jerome\u2019s seven locations. “From the beginning, we tried to create the culture of a company to be family oriented,” said Navarra. “I think we were very successful in doing that.” Ann stepped down as accessory buyer and vice president of finance in 2008, though her brother, Jerry, has remained the face of Jerome\u2019s for four decades. Without Navarra\u2019s commitment to the tournament committee 10 years ago, City of Hope might not have seen such large donations, officials said. Although it has always been active in the community, it was only 10 years ago that the National Home Furnishing Industry Group began raising awareness and funds for City of Hope. Acting as a committee member at the time she was designated an honoree, Navarra knew the group could only get better. “Being the honoree, which is a privilege and an honor, of course, I was really humbled by it,” she said. “Each year we raise the standard. We couldn\u2019t fail [that first year] because all we had to do was go up. It\u2019s part of life to share with others and give back to the community that has helped us so much.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ann Navarra\u2019s commitment to the City of Hope West Coast Golf and Tennis Tournament came full circle this year. In 2001, Navarra was named the first honoree and helped to raise about $250,000 for the cancer treatment and research center. Ten years later, her family\u2019s company, San Diego-based Jerome\u2019s Furniture, was honored with a Lifetime […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":271303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"City of Hope honors Jerome\u2019s Furniture\u2019s founding family","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}