Community Corner

Now That's Italian! 12th Annual Spaghetti Dinner Draws a Crowd

It was a full house at St. Martins-in-the-Field on Saturday night for the annual dinner to benefit the Severna Park Community Center.

Dinner forks were twirling as patrons to the 12th Annual Spaghetti Dinner on Saturday loaded up on pasta, about 72 pounds of it—along with a special sauce, meatballs, salad and bread, refreshments and a dessert table stuffed with baked goods. Many local businesses helped make the evening a success by donating food or refreshments.

The proceeds benefit the Severna Park Community Center (SPCC) and it looks like the dinner brought in about $6,500 said Chris Marsala, executive director of the SPCC. “ This event is about getting out and spending time with your friends and neighbors. It is what gives Severna Park the “community” feeling.  It also shows what a generous community we live in… from the business owners to the religious and educational leaders, everyone coming together to support our community center.”

The person who puts all the pasta in place, and has done so for the past 12 years, is Barbie Willis, also known as the "Spaghetti Queen." Willis said about 500 people, give or take a noodle or two, stopped in for the Italian-style buffet manned by celebrity servers—local business, church and community volunteers who came out to help dole out the dinner.

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"It was truly a success," wrote Willis in an email to Patch. Although the dinner is a fundraiser for the Severna Park Community Center, of which Willis is a member of the board, she said it is more about "getting the community together for a good time and that seems to work every year."

Thank You's From Barbie Willis

Barbie would like to thank the following people who have helped her over the years in making the dinner a success:

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Anita Sargent, who has been in charge of Celebrity Servers for years; Christ Marsala (SPCC Director) is a cheerful dynamo who's endless enthusiasm is astonishing..It's a joy to work with her to benefit SPCC.

There is a group that has been with me from the beginning and the usually say, "Hey, Barbie.  It must be Spaghetti Dinner time". They are amazing & seem to love coming to the dinner as well as cheerfully donating...Martin Gorman at Ledo's (enless vats of sauce), Rod Reddish at Pedal Pushers (who writes a good sized check to adopt the meatballs), Eddie Conway at Garry's Grill (cheerfully orders all of the salad that I need) and Victor Ledezma at Cafe Bretton who personally stirs up tubs of yummy salad dressing the day before the dinner. 

That particular group has always been there for me, including Chip Carr who has donated the tickets for 12 years. Of course there are tons more generous merchants who also donated necessary stuff, thank you to them as well said Barbie who will be turning over the reigns to Kurt Ivey who volunteered to chair the event next year.

 


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