Group fetes two women

LA CRESCENTA — One young woman had to overcome physical and emotional abuse to get her life back and the other spent most of her youth helping others.

On Wednesday Soroptimist International of the Verdugos recognized them both for their achievements.

Sarah Burell, 28, received the organization's Women's Opportunity Award, which recognizes women who reclaim their dreams, said Nancy Hathaway, the organization's charter president and co-founder.

Karla Bernabel, 17, was given the Violet Richardson Award for outstanding community service and volunteerism, Hathaway said.

The award recipients, their friends and family and members of the Soroptimist chapter gathered at the T Room in Montrose for an intimate and quaint ceremony that hid the struggles and efforts of Burell and Karla.

"It's just amazing," Burell said. "I've been through so much but it's made me who I am today."

Today she is a Glendale Community College student who works full time as spa director at Tuscany Spa Skin and Body Clinic in Montrose. But the road she had to take to get to where she is now was riddled with hardships and obstacles.

Burell's mother died of breast cancer in 1997 after battling it for years, Burell said.

Her father became addicted to cocaine after the death, a continuation of his history of drug use, she said.

"I hated him … literally, I thought of him as a monster," she said.

With pressures of school and family bearing down on her, she was forced to drop out of Glendale Community College, she said.

She was accepted to UC Santa Barbara, where she planned to study, she said.

She supported herself and her father through this time, helping him snap out of his drug addiction. He beat the addiction six years ago, she said, and it took her a while to get acquainted with the man that had made her childhood so tough.

"At first I was suspicious and cautious," she said.

"But we did intensive therapy. It took about three years to accept him."

Her father now volunteers at the Northeast Mental Health Clinic in Highland Park, helping people with mental disabilities who have alcohol and drug addictions, Burell said.

"His life has changed so much," she said. "He's such an inspiration for me."

Burell is back in Glendale Community College, but now she is studying hospitality management, she said. She plans to graduate after the fall semester, she said.