Getting a taste of the village

For the 16th year, the Taste of Rockville Centre brought the community together for an evening of local food and live music while raising money for charity. Organized by the Rockville Centre St. Patrick’s Day Committee and held at the St. Agnes Parish Center on Jan. 24, the annual event provides an opportunity for guests to sample food, microbrews and wine from more than 20 local vendors.

Ann Travers has chaired the event for the past four years, and said it is a great way to bring businesses and residents together. Over the past few years, she said, she has noticed more engagement from the vendors.

“This is a wonderful local event that has evolved from a point where restaurants were making charitable donations of food, served by a team of volunteers, to now, quite literally, having the business owners themselves standing behind the food they’ve prepared on the night of the event,” Travers said. “And they love it. The vendors get to truly connect with over 500 potential customers from all over Nassau, and even parts of Suffolk.” 

Throughout the evening, guests wandered from table to table, sampling a variety of cuisine from pasta to barbecue, as well as baked goods, coffee, beer and wine. Jerry & the Newcomers provided live music for the event, which got people on the dance floor. Travers said while many of the vendors return, the committee invites a new restaurant to participate each year “to keep things fresh.” This year’s newcomer was Arooga’s, and returning vendors included Front Street Bakery, Kookaburra Coffee Company, Polka Dot Pound Cake, Dark Horse Tavern, RJ Daniels, EGP of Oceanside, Press195, South Shore Brewery, Flour Shoppe Cafe, Swingbellys BBQ of Long Beach, Three Links Brewing, Mesita, Parlay, Lenox & Park, CJ’s Coffee Shop, Radigan’s, MacArthur Park, Kasey’s, Monaghan’s and Village Liquor, which coordinates the wine tastings every year.

Travers said that it is typical for the event to attract a large turnout annually, though she noted that this year about half of attendees were first-time guests, mostly from Rockville Centre. She attributed this, in part, to an increased presence on social media and, she speculated that some people came to support this year’s grand marshal, Ellen White, co-founder of Backyard Players and Friends. 

“It’s really interesting to see that,” she said, “and hopefully it will get more people engaged with the parade and other fundraisers.”

The Taste of Rockville Centre is just one of several fundraisers held by the Rockville Centre St. Patrick’s Day Committee each year, which raises money for three different charities annually. As the chief organizer of “The Parade that Cares and Shares,” the committee has donated more than $1.32 million to 70 different charities over the past 23 years. Each year, three charities to receive the funds: one local, one national and one in Ireland.

“We are the only parade in New York state that gives away our net proceeds to charity,” Dennis Houdek, parade committee president, said. “Last year we donated around $99,000.”

Picking the charities, Houdek said, is one of the board’s most time-consuming duties. The charities go through an application process that includes presenting to the board. This year, he said there were 22 applicants, with the committee only interviewing the top nine finalists.

“We want to be transformative to the recipient,” he said. “We want our contribution to be a high percentage of their budget that can help them get to the next level.”

This year’s national recipient is the Army Ranger Lead The Way Fund, Inc., which supports U.S. Army rangers and the families of rangers who have died, been disabled or are serving around the world. The Irish charity is Holy Family School for the Deaf, and the local nonprofit is the Rockville Centre Breast Cancer Coalition.

The designation prompted Peggy McDonald, co-president of the RVC Breast Cancer Coalition, to attend the event with her husband for the first time.

“It was a really nice community event,” she said. “We had good food, good drinks, saw a lot of people and had a nice evening.”

Before being chosen as a recipient, she and Co-President Erin Sullivan had to give a 20-minute presentation to the board about the charity. McDonald said that, as a fairly young organization, it was a good experience for them and also a “huge honor.”

“I didn’t realize what was behind the St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” she said. “We’re only in our third year, so we feel honored that they chose us, and it’s good for us to be associated with them.”

“The RVC Breast Cancer Coalition supports 47 women in the village and surrounding communities,” Houdek said. “This contribution will make a difference in the lives of these women and their families.”

A Game Show fundraiser will take place at the John A. Anderson Recreation Center on Friday, and a Holy Spirits fundraiser, a tribute to parade chaplain Father James Hansen, will be held at Monaghan’s on Feb. 7. The St. Patrick’s Day parade will be on March 21.