7th Annual Dinner by Starlight
Fundraiser Honors Local Shining Stars, Benefits New Education Center
ALLENTOWN, PA. (11-24-2008) - For seven years, St. Luke's Hospital – Allentown Campus has been honoring Shining Stars, people and organizations recognized for their contributions to the community.
This year the Dinner by Starlight dinner, which honored the Shining Stars, was held on Thursday, November 6 at the Holiday Inn Conference Center in Fogelsville to benefit the St. Luke's Hospital - Allentown Campus Education Center. The new Center will occupy the first floor of the new East Wing and is slated for opening in May, 2009. The Education Center will provide state of the art space for continuing medical education, as well as an area to offer special training to the community, EMS and clinicians.
“The Education Center will allow the Allentown Campus to present a vast array of continuing education programming for our physicians, nurses, and other patient care specialists, enabling our staff to keep up with the latest technology and procedures,” said Frank Ford, Allentown Campus President. “Equipped with the latest technology, we'll be able to utilize distance learning to bring experts to our medical staff without the need for travel. This center will also be available to community organizations for small or large group gatherings.”
Honorary stars Kostas Kalogeropoulos and Janet Gross greeted nearly 400 guests who attended the celebratory event.
St. Luke's Hospital – Allentown Campus honored five individuals and one organization from the greater Lehigh Valley area this year. Nominations were solicited from the community and from local not-for-profit organizations.
The 2008 Shining Stars
Stitches of Love, Barbara Grove, President (nominated by the Child Advocacy Center of Lehigh County)
When the Child Advocacy Center of Lehigh County developed the Annual Blue Scarf Drive to protect children from cold and abuse, they met up with a tremendous organization called Stitches of Love. This group of more than 1,400 knitters, weavers, and crocheters mostly come from independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing, and rehabilitation centers, and lend their lifetime of skills to making caps, blankets, helmet liners, slipper socks, and so many other things. Much of their focus is on the needs of military families, making infant blankets and hats in red, white, and blue for their anticipated offspring. They also make MaMa and PaPa dolls for young toddlers. Each doll has the face in the image of the parent on deployment, allowing the child to have their doll present for all family activities. Even though the parent isn't present, their memory is kept alive as they interact with their doll. President, Barbara Grove has been employed in many different fields over her 40+ year career, and retires in 2004 to devote fulltime to Stitches of Love. She is joined in serving this fantastic organization by her husband of 45 years, Bruce, who uses his 35 years experience as a CFO to good use as the Treasurer of the organization.
Mary Rarich (nominated by Phoebe Ministries)
With most organizations, volunteers tend to come and go, with the rare few who really commit themselves to an organization. Mary is the poster child for commitment, as she is the first volunteer in Phoebe's history to be award a 40-year service pin. At 89-years of age, Mary could easily spend her time with her 6 grandchildren, but she still gives one day a week to Phoebe, answering phones, updating activity charts, or countless other important administrative tasks. Mary learned her work ethic as a child in Millgrove, PA. She graduated from Bloomsburg High School 3rd out of 137 students, and worked as the office manager at J.J. Newberry in 1936 and 1937 and as a Department Head at Sears from 1937-1947. Since 1968, Mary has tirelessly given her time and talent to Phoebe doing just about anything they needed. She love bus trips and reading, and is an active member in her church: St. John's UCC in Emmaus.
Richard Reisinger (nominated by Bethel Bible Fellowship Church)
Much of Rich Reisinger's life has revolved around food. In 2005 he retired after a 32-year career at Kraft. So, what better way to spend your volunteer time than to feed the hungry. Since 1993, Rich has coordinated the Groceries Plus Food Bank at Bethel Bible Fellowship Church. He accepts delieveries, unloads and repacks tons of food that arrives from Second Harvest, and many other food drives, and prepares the food for pickup by familiels in need. Beyond that Rich also chairs two nation food drives per year. Because of Rich's hard work and commitment, more than 100 Emmaus and Macungie families each month receive desperately needed food assistance. Rich lives in Emmaus with his wife Linda, and looks forward to seeing his newest Grandson in Portland, OR, who is 12 weeks old.
Lynn Nagel (nominated by Cetronia Ambulance Corps.)
Lynn has been a volunteer with Cetronia for more than 20 years as an EMT and as an instructor in life safety techniques including CPR/AED classes to EMS professionals, community residents, businesses, boy scouts, and military personnel. She is credited for revitalizing Cetronia's Youth Program which trains youth in Emergency Response, and the TAP program, which prepares youth, through instruction to respond to emergency calls with EMT's and Paramedics. She has been recognized by Cetronia Ambulance Corps, Lehigh Valley Hospital, the American Red Cross, Lehigh County Emergency Services, and Company C, 228th Support Batallion for her tireless dedication. Lynn feels she receives her own personal reward when she has successfully trained, guided, mentored or encouraged an individual by using her gift of teaching.
Anthony Gallucci
Anthony Gallucci is a 7th grade student at Lower Macungie Middle School who has a passion for playing guitar and riding motorcycles. It was through his love of riding PopPop's Harley that he became involved with the Ride for Life. The Ride for Life is a motorcycle ride sponsored by the Eastern Harley Davidson Dealers' Association to benefit Muscular Dystrophy. He first participated in the Ride for Life five years ago. To raise money his first year he wrote a letter to friends and family explaining that through our dealer, Schaeffer's Harley Davidson, he would raise money to help his friends David and Shane who both have the disease. When Anthony was a little boy he used to run around and play with David at the dealership but over the years he's watched David and Shane slowly progress through the stages of the disease. Both are now confined to wheelchairs.
Anthony has been the top child fundraiser since MDA began this category three years ago. He was the inspiration for its formation. Since then there are now more than 20 children competing in the children's category to raise money to benefit their peers. Anthony's cumulative total funds raised for Muscular Dystrophy are $9,612.11. With his 2009 goal he hopes to exceed the $12,000 mark. As he gets older Anthony has a better understanding of how important the contributions are by seeing how it impacts not only his friends but also new families to MDA.
