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Community Corner

Scouts' Spaghetti Has Many Saying 'Mangia!'

More than 300 partake for local troop's biggest fundraiser of the year.

So much of participation in the Boy Scouts has to do with the concept of service especially serving the community in any way possible.

All Scouts have community service requirements to fulfill on their way to earning “merit badges,” or recognition for special projects. There are many opportunities for Scouts to serve—painting historical sites or cleaning brush from public trails, for example.

And then there are community events, such as the ever-popular Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser, which was held on Saturday at Our Lady of the Mount Church.

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“The response from the public has been pretty good,” said Troop 228 Scout Master Peter Lucas. “We had a talk with the Scouts beforehand and told them it’s their time to shine in front of the community.”

Boys Scouts from Warren’s Troop 228 served the community in a much more direct way on Saturday—handing out plates of spaghetti and waiting on tables for town residents, troop families, residents and parishioners at Our Lady of the Mount Church.

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“The event is going extremely smoothly,” said Scout parent Glenn Guerin, who has two boys in the troop. On Saturday, he was working the exit stairs from the church asking parishioners to sit down for a plate of hot spaghetti and meatballs.

“Would you like to try our spaghetti dinner?” Guerin said as parishioners as they exited the stairs after early evening mass. Many took him up on the offer, including the Minieri family.

“We came out to church and we always support the Scouts,” said Gretchen Minieri, who was with her husband Michael, Michael Jr., son Gideon and daughter Gabrielle. Michael Jr., is in the Cub Scouts and hopes to advance to the Boy Scouts one day.

Others attended for the fun of it all.

“We came because we didn’t want to cook,” said Linda Basko. “The food was delicious and my waiter, Ethan Tu, was fabulous.”

Basko was with her friend, Chris Petroski, from Dunellen, who said the food was so good “that we came all the way from Dunellen” to have some.

The spaghetti dinner is the Scouts’ largest fundraiser of the year, attended by approximately 300 people. While attendees do bring some revenue through purchase of $10 tickets, the majority of funding comes from local businesses.

About six weeks before the event, Scouts are responsible for soliciting support from local businesses. Support comes in the form of advertising in an event guidebook, which is distributed to all attending the Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser.  

Sponsor's advertising can pay for a portion, or perhaps all, of a Scout’s trip to the Sabattis Scout Adventure Camp in Long Lake, N.Y., depending on the total.

 There are, however, some Scouts who are able to solicit as much as $1,000 from area businesses, more than five times the required amount for an all expenses paid trip to Sabattis.

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