It was all about the generosity of community when a sold-out crowd of about 150 donors, nonprofits and people who just enjoy the bounty of the land gathered at Blue Lake Ranch on Thursday for the 6th Annual Community Taste Dinner.
The generosity of community started with giving by area food purveyors who more than fed the crowd well. Manna Soup Kitchen, Nature’s Oasis, Nini’s Taqueria, the Chip Peddler and Gazpacho New Mexican Restaurant filled a table to overflowing with appetizers. The meat was provided by Sunnyside Meats, courtesy of Jerry and Karen Zink, and prepared by Chuck Norton and his crew at Norton’s Catering (beef) and Paul Gelose and his crew at The Palace Restaurant (pork). The Yellow Carrot made zucchini-fritter sliders, Mahogany Grille served a quinoa salad with pumpkin seeds and cranberries, Cyprus Café offered a green salad, El Moro Spirits & Tavern dished up a beet salad with peach vinaigrette, Lost Dog Bar & Lounge made gigantic bowls of coleslaw, the DoubleTree Hotel provided a fruit salad, and the coup de grâce – and back by popular demand – was the Ore House’s smoky macaroni and cheese with bacon.
I don’t know how anyone found room for dessert, but Norton donated his signature bread pudding, Jocelyn Skill of Skillfully Decadent made the creamiest mini-cheesecakes and Barbara Helmer of the Kennebec Café made a flaky, still warm-from-the-oven, apple strudel.
Star Liquors, Animas Spirits and Ska Brewing Co. provided the potent potables – hey, I’m a “Jeopardy!” fan, so sue me – and hosts Shirley Isgar and David Alford continued their long-term support of the foundation.
June Russell, Kathleen Adams, Mike Hudson and Allison Morrissey made up the event-planning committee.
The foundation has struggled since the beginning at describing what it does in an “elevator speech,” or a quick, succinct statement. Its materials say it is “increasing effective philanthropy for individuals and nonprofits in Southwest Colorado.” Executive Director Briggen Wrinkle, who has been working on it since she’s started, thinks she’s finally found it. The foundation is the ultimate matchmaker, she said.
“We match up philanthropists with nonprofits so that giving is raised from obligation to inspiring,” she said. “We match entrepreneurs or would-be nonprofits with existing nonprofits so that we can maximize effort and resources and not have so many nonprofits to support. (Amen.) And we match community emergencies with existing efforts and resources to bolster volunteer hours and community education and strengthen ties.”
Mike Hudson, outgoing president of the board, introduced incoming President Molly Martin, one of the founders of the foundation and, with her husband, Gregg, owner of the foundation’s largest donor-advised fund.
Mike Smedley, best known as Mr. Action Line to Herald readers, had on his Bank of the San Juans hat that evening, offering a $5,000 matching grant for the foundation’s Cornerstone Fund. (That match was met in short order after Smedley’s announcement.)
Wrinkle announced another matching grant for $5,000, this one for the Community Emergency Relief Fund from Denver-based environmental foundation Trinchera Blanca. Trinchera Blanca wanted to do something for those affected by the Gold King Mine spill. Gotta love it when money comes from outside the community. Fundraising will begin soon.
The evening ended with the dance floor full as Tim Sullivan and his band got the beat going.
HHH
Hoping to enjoy the last of the summer birthdays with sunshine are Mike Milner, Ulys Gardella, Alexa Fleming, Kobe Szura, Rap Fairley, Ben Nye, Peter Olson, Larry Hjermstad, Lynn Partridge, Wesley Moore, Robert Moore, Patricia Anderson, Elaine Honold, Kermit Knudsen, Art Meyer, Linda Hartlein, Naomi Magyar, Todd Sieger, Kristen Collins, Ted Robson, Harold Jackson, Peggy Sharp, Clyde James, Greer Bohan, Valerie Beaudette, Wardine Lee, Carol House, Connie Matthys, Dianne Donovan, Paul McGurr, Lori Jackson, Pat Campbell, Andy Kraftherfer, Emma Wales, David Mantor, Norma Jean Engman, Steve Sproul, David Shipps, Jim Sutherland, Renee Knight, Cathy Duggan, Carrie Thurman, Jude Ranasinghe, Lynn Murison, J.T. Munger, Clark Cunningham, Sydney Morris, Nancy Fisher, Marian Pierce, Karen McCarthy and Dana Wilson.
HHH
I seem to be in storyteller mode this week. First I wrote about Becky Stone, who will portray Rosa Parks in a Chautauqua-style performance this evening, now I’m writing about Jean Campion, history researcher extraordinaire on the southwest side of La Plata County.
Campion has released her third novel in the “Minta” series this summer, In the Shadow of Rockytop. (The previous two were Minta Forever and Return to Rockytop.) Set 10 years later, the story introduces a more mature Minta, now a mother of four. When the teacher at the little one-room school leaves partway into the school year – and good riddance, may I say – the community has to take a vote to allow a married woman and mother to teach to get Minta back into the classroom. Her husband, Silas, is surprised when she says she wants to take over the teaching job not just for the rest of the year, but permanently, leading to one of my favorite lines in the book: “I know better than to get in the way of a useful woman.” You betcha.
A mystery involving two missing boys serves as the centerpiece, but the founding of the grange is an important piece of history in that area of the county. It was nice to learn a bit more about how the folks at the Animas Valley Grange, already in existence, helped the little farming communities in that isolated area found a grange of their own.
Campion once again partnered with her artist daughter Catherine Campion Dougharty on the project. Dougharty created the cover art for the book.
I often say I like to travel when I read, and this was a trip to a time and place close and yet so far away.
HHH
Continuing on the storyteller front, I meant to write something about Sari Ross after her sudden death in the spring, and then I thought I would get something in after her memorial service in August, but the best of intentions lead to you know where.
In any case, I wanted to take a moment, at the every least, to say farewell to a woman who delighted audiences young and old, who was always surprising, quite often funny and always in the moment.
Storytelling is such an art form, one of humanity’s oldest. We stopped doing it so much with the advent of radio, television, the movies and the Internet – I guess we became passive consumers of stories instead of creators and tellers of stories.
But Ross was a reminder of how important that tradition is to our wellbeing. Whether she was reading a story or telling one from memory, she drew her audience into a place of shared magic. Our world is the worse for her passing.
When she called me last fall before her and husband, Reid’s, 65th anniversary, she wanted credit not only for being married 65 years, but for 65 years to the same man.
HHH
Celebrating Indian summer anniversaries are Ken and Linda Hartlein, Greg and Beth Stelz, Bruce and Annette Nye, Curtis and Ann Swanson, Todd and Jessica Sharp, Frank and Ricci Dawson, Mark Dickmann and Eve Gilmore, Will and Carol Connelly and Jim and Jean Robinett.
HHH
My apologies to Neighbors readers for missing the column last week. Between a holiday weekend and a lot of stories scheduled to run the same day, something had to give, and that was Neighbors.
HHH
Here’s how to reach me: neighbors@durangoherald.com; phone 375-4584; mail items to the Herald; or drop them off at the front desk. Please include contact names and phone numbers for all items. Follow me on Twitter @Ann_Neighbors.
I am happy to consider photos for Neighbors, but they must be high-quality, high-resolution photos (at least 1 MB of memory) and include no more than three to five people.
