Suzanne Butler, Ken Minichiello, and Rosemary Holmes
Melissa D’Onofrio
Two hundred members and guests attended our elegant and popular PebbleCreek Italian American Club (PCIAC) Poinsettia Ball on Dec. 3. After missing the ball last year due to COVID, partiers were delighted to be enjoying the company of friends in such a festive and beautifully decorated environment.
Our holiday celebration began with drinks and hot appetizers in the Chianti Room, where we enjoyed the beautiful pre-dinner crooning of Bart Ventura.
Raffle tickets were sold for an opportunity to win a dining experience at some of the area’s most popular restaurants. We then enjoyed a sumptuous holiday feast in the Tuscany Falls Ballroom, followed by dancing to the lively music of the crowd-pleasing Rhythm Edition Band, and the announcement of the raffle ticket winners. Jane Barnhart won dinner at Forno 301; Helen Thompson won dinner at Sicilian Butcher; Bill Harrell won dinner at Steak 44, and Bob Spano won dinner at CIBO. Congratulations to all of our winners!
Although the restrictions brought about by the pandemic generated some new and challenging issues, the ball was expertly organized by our volunteers, Suzanne Butler, Rosemary Holmes, and Jackie Voccola. Their primary stumbling block was the restriction on the number of guests allowed due to limited catering staff. In prior years, we seated 280 guests and were able to offer tables of 10, which allowed larger groups to be seated together. Since we were limited to 200 tickets this year, we took steps to ensure that all club members could purchase at least two tickets before opening up any other sales. This meant surveying membership in advance to pre-determine interest before opening sales to non-members. The final step was arranging table placements to accommodate guest’s seating requests. The entire process was a bit complex and time-consuming, but Suzanne, Rosemary, and Jackie worked hard in an attempt to please everyone.
We thank Catering Director Melissa Gonzales for all of her help to make the evening very special. We are especially impressed with and appreciative of the effort put forth by the chef, his staff, and the wonderful servers, many of whom are new to PebbleCreek! We thank our president, Ken Minichiello, for his amazing support, the area restaurants who graciously donated to our event, all of our volunteers who worked to make this event a huge success, and our members and guests who participated in the festivities!