By Payton Calati
On Tuesday, Oct. 24 Grand Rapids Community College is hosting Scholarfest at the Secchia Piazza inside the Wisner-Bottrall Applied Technology Center.
“I’m really excited,” said Erin Van Egmond, executive director of GRCC Foundation. “When we plan our Scholarfest events or any event, we always want the guest to come and go away with having a good GRCC experience,” Van Egmond said. “So we want the event to be different from any other event that people go to in town.”
Tickets are $150 per person and all proceeds go into the scholarships presented that night.
She explained that this fundraising event is to sponsor scholarships for the students and honor one person or family for their contributions to our community.
“Scholarfest is our annual fundraising event for scholarships for students. It’s not always about money but somebody that’s really given back to this community and specifically the college community,” Van Egmond said. “Each year it raises money for our unrestricted scholarships, so it’s our most general scholarship award if you will.”
Van Egmond said they work to keep event expenses low.
“The wonderful thing too is we are able to keep expenses down quite a bit so that all money does go to scholarships, because we have it here on campus, so we’re not (renting) a facility, we’re showcasing this facility, (and) we’re inviting people to come here on our campus,” Van Egmond said.
In the honor of James V. Buzzitta, the night’s title sponsor, they wanted to make the event personal to him and his family by serving Italian dishes for the night’s menu in honor of his heritage. There will even be a contest between five alumni chefs.
“We’re very intentional about making sure that our students and even alumni are the focus of the event so this year we are doing something (different), we’re putting a new little twist on it and there’s a competition involved,” Van Egmond said. “Five alumni that have graduated from the Secchia institute for culinary education, are preparing the menu for the night. They’ve planned it, they’re preparing it, and they’ve been partnered with a student in the Secchia institute program.”
Each team will have one alumni and one student that will prepare a meal and each guest will receive three wine corks to vote with.
“Guests throughout the night will be able to vote for the best chef if you will. And that chef will win the bragging rights for the evening,” Van Egmond said.
Scholarfest will take place from 6-8 p.m. with a short presentation by Buzzitta at 6:45 p.m., during which he will be talking about his time at GRCC.
“He will make some remarks during the program to thank people and to talk about his legacy, because he’s also an alumni of Grand Rapids community college,” Van Egmond said. “It was actually Grand Rapids Junior College at the time he went here… so his relationships with this institution started many many years ago and he still continued to build that by… serving as chair person on the foundation board.”
Guests should expect to have a fun time.
“They should expect a fun, relaxed night,” Van Egmond said. “You’ll get to experience our beautiful facility, our amazing alumni and amazing students and even faculty and staff. And then get to hear about the legacy of an individual that has made a tremendous impact on this community and specifically this college. So guests should expect to have a fun time, to eat wonderful food, and just enjoy the community’s company.”
