Service center gala raises thousands

The Community Action Service Center raised over $9,000 with last week’s first Community Activist Award Gala.

By: T.J. Furman
   Following the success of last week’s Community Activist Award Gala, the Community Action Service Center in Hightstown hopes to make the event an annual occasion.
   The service center’s executive director, Lydia Santoni-Lawrence, said the gala, held Friday, Sept. 14, at the Ramada Inn in East Windsor, has raised more than $9,000.
   Former Executive Director Marcia Alig was honored for her 10 years of service to the center and Mayors Amy Aughenbaugh and Janice Mironov were presented with civic awards by the center. A corporate award was given to Merrill Lynch.
   "The goal (for the gala) was $5,000," Ms. Santoni-Lawrence said this week. "We had about a $10,000 deficit in our youth programs budget. It looks like through the grace of God that it’s going to be covered."
   Ms. Santoni-Lawrence said the service center hopes the gala will make the community more aware of what the service center does. The nonprofit group’s mission is to "empower low-income, disabled and senior clients to increase their self-sufficiency." To that end, the group runs youth education, crisis intervention, health services and nutrition programs, among others.
   A highlight of the evening, according to Ms. Santoni-Lawrence, was an auction at which a quilt made by children attending the service center’s summer HELP (Hightstown-East Windsor Learning Program) was up for bid. The group of bidders that won the quilt presented it to Mayor Aughenbaugh, who said it would be hung at the Hightstown Municipal Building.
   The quilt consists of nearly 100 squares on which the children drew pictures. Local quilter Gail Klein took the squares and assembled the quilt.
   "I think (the quilt is) appropriate now more than ever because it demonstrates all the diversity in the community," Ms. Santoni-Lawrence said. "All the different pieces of that quilt coming together to make one thing shows what this community does every day and does well. We don’t do it perfectly, but we do it well."
   Officials at the service center initially struggled with the decision of whether to hold the gala or not in the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. However, Ms. Santoni-Lawrence does not regret the decision to move ahead.
   "It felt more like a family affair than a public event," Ms. Santoni-Lawrence said. "Everything that was going on before that tragedy hit is still going on and our work has to continue."