For the fourth or fifth year I cooked the spaghetti sauce
and for the first time I was designated the “Chairman” of the committee of one
to ramrod the whole show after Chris Walsh passed the torch last year.
After 2011’s dinner turned out such a disaster, we were all
determined to make this year’s one of redemption. The judgment of how successful we were will
be left to others. Ultimately, getting
people to come back year after year is the best measure.
This blog post is not so much to focus on the dinner project
but to focus on the folks who made it a success.
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| Sonia Rahm |
From the Tillicums, Sonia Rahm stepped up to work with me
from the very earliest days a couple months ago. She helped me tremendously by running to the
Health District to secure the permit.
John Bruce printed the tickets to get the ball rolling and
newly installed Tillicum President Jim Rahm leaned on his club members to sell
four hundred tickets while Rod Vroman from our club arm twisted our members to
do the same. He didn’t meekly ask us to
sell tickets, he assigned ten ticket books to every member attending meetings
in early October. (As of this writing, there has not been a report from either
club regarding the number of tickets actually sold.
On Wednesday, October 25th I shopped for supplies
I would need to cook the sauce. My
mission was to cook enough sauce to feed 500.
In 2011 I cooked the sauce all by myself. This year, I asked Tracy Roberge to help and
on Wednesday she spent the day with me doing the first half of the job. On Thursday, I asked my brother Rick to be my
wingman and we finished making the 27 gallons of meat sauce after a second 6
hour day.
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| Steve Dana and Aaron Hammer |
While we were working in the kitchen, another group of
Kiwanians was working in the gymnasium setting up the tables. John Diehl arrived at 1pm thinking the work party started at 2, but in the end
the workers showed up around 3pm
after John had gone home. No harm, there
were enough folks to get the tables set up and spread out. I know I saw Paul Shaus, David Peznekker and
Jim Rahm out there but there could have been more.
As you can see this project has already brought a lot of
folks together to get a big job done long before a single dinner was cooked.
On Friday morning I went back to Cash & Carry to get the
rest of the supplies and to pick up the garlic bread.
At about 11 am I
discovered there wasn’t a freezer at the church to keep my Dixie
cups frozen so in a panic, I reached out to Chris Walsh to see if he had a
freezer I could use and within minutes Paul Knoll was at my door with a
freezer.
In the afternoon, Sonia and I started cutting the 80 loaves
of garlic bread. Soon thereafter, Ken
Hammond arrived and we had an official work party.
Around 2pm , Barry
McGee arrived and I knew we had a spaghetti feed.
Soon I had Jay VanAssche and one of his young co-pilots in my kitchen and we were cooking spaghetti. Not long after that, Aaron Hammer was up to his elbows in pasta.
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| Dawn Kulaga and Jay Van Assche on the front lines |
The success of this project is attributable to contributions
of so many volunteers; many of whom I either never knew their names or forgot
their names. The Glacier Peak Key Club came through with several shifts of young folks helping in the dining area cleaning tables and serving ice cream.
Another group of volunteers worked the salad bar. I have no idea how they do their job but I'm thankful they do.
My hope is to show you their pictures as they were doing their jobs to get them some credit and to let them see their picture on the internet for the whole world to see. I can only offer my heartfelt thanks to each and every one of them for helping me make this dinner a success.
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| Ed Stocker dropped by to visit with Gary Maxfield, Jim Rahm, Nola Shaus and Frank Spaetig |
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| Who could forget the hundreds of our friends and neighbors who came to eat spaghetti? |
