The more things change…! Metro Justice has been doing dinner fundraisers since we were Friends of Fight. But they haven’t always been Annual Dinners. Various older members have remembered spaghetti dinners of years past, and Denise Young was able to help me tie down a few details on those: they were held until sometime in the 1980s in church basements with kitchens (she remembers Immaculate Conception in Cornhill), and were considered more in the way of periodic dinner fundraisers than a specifically annual event.
Jon Greenbaum was able to add to the story. He attended them well before his time as an organizer (2002-09) and remembers there was a steady spaghetti dinner crew (he remembers particularly Fred Shaeffer, Bill McCoy, and John Keevert) who over the years developed a fund of expertise - bolstered by practice. One year they didn’t get the pasta water boiling on time, which meant the entire dinner was late - no doubt that went onto the checklist! By that point they were holding them at First Unitarian Church on Winton Road. We've also held the dinners at Temple B'rith Kodesh (kosher, and on Sundays), before moving to the AFSCME Hall in 2024.
By 1991, Metro-Act’s dinner fundraiser had become an Annual Dinner, as seen in the cover image above. We have a full run of Annual Dinner programs from 1991 to the present, both in our paper archives and now scanned and saved in a folder. Anyone interested in delving further into how those programs help chronicle the past 35 years of our history? Let me know and we can work out access!
John also remembers that after the move to Thurston Road, the Fundraising Committee and Tanya Smolinsky (Development Officer at the time - the position now named "Membership and Fundraising Coordinator) made two big changes - switching from spaghetti cooked by volunteers to a caterer (Peg Gefell's Savory Thyme, back then) and adding the Silent Auction. Sue DeFabbia, who has known John since they were college classmates at SUNY Binghamton, has since taken over the auction, as well as spearheading the stalwart team of volunteers who now run the dinner (still with catering help, now from Agatina's), as George Elkind has taken the role once played by Tanya. Still doing the same work and worrying over the same details of invitations, programs, tables, speakers and honorees! The more things change, the more they remain the same!
And just a reminder - if you haven't gotten around to buying your tickets yet, it's not too late! Click here!