Newtown Meeting’s Lasagna Dinner Fundraiser is a Virtual Success
The masks hide the smiles of these Newtown Meeting young Friends
The youth of Newtown Friends Meeting have done it again! Hosted an extraordinarily successful fund-raiser during a pandemic and raised over $3,000!
The designated charity for their event this year was the Mercer Street Friends Summer Pre-School Program in Trenton, NJ, a “Quaker-affiliated, nonsectarian organization focused on hunger, poverty and access to educational opportunities.”
Newtown Meeting Quaker Kids have now raised and distributed to charities of their choice more than $34,000 over the past fourteen years by serving simple meals for voluntary donations.
In lieu of prices for servings of lasagna and desserts available for the Virtual Dinner, purchasers were asked to make donations when they picked up their orders.
The hybrid in-person food pickup at the Court Street Meetinghouse with virtual socializing afterwards was the 2021 version of the teenagers’ annual Lasagna Dinner, which usually attracted over one hundred in the Gathering Room of the historic Meetinghouse.
Lasagnas baked by members of the Quaker Meeting and donated to the event included vegan, vegetarian, meat and gluten-free choices. Donated homemade desserts included lemon, coconut and carrot cakes, as well as a wide variety of cookies, brownies and pies.
Lisa Li of West Windsor, NJ, head of the children’s Lasagna Dinner Committee, said, “The children and teens of our Meeting worked together beautifully, packaging and serving food for pick-up in the Meetinghouse parking lot and collecting donations for their charity of choice this year.”
Everything was packed in compostable containers. Masks and social distancing were required during preparation and pick-up.
Lisa Li was assisted by Sharon Hulihan of Newtown whom she credits with reconceptualizing the Lasagna Dinner from the usual in-person and indoors event to an in-person only for food pick-up, with virtual socializing and fellowship afterwards hybrid event. “Sharon was spectacular,” said Li. “She is brilliantly well-organized and arranged for drop-offs by volunteer providers of lasagnas and desserts, pre-ordering for buyers, and ensured social distancing and mask wearing at all times. Everything went off beautifully.”