Grand Rapids Community College honored Dr. James V. Buzzitta at the 2023 Scholarfest on Oct. 2. The Secchia Piazza was filled with attendees who paid $150 a ticket, with all proceeds going to student scholarships. Donors and past and present GRCC administrators were in attendance as well.
A GRCC alumnus and one of the directors of the GRCC Foundation, Buzzitta, shared how community college is the foundation of higher education and that he would not be the individual he is today without the opportunities offered to him during his time here on campus.
Buzzitta graduated from GRCC in 1974 with an associate’s degree in science, and would later complete his undergraduate work with honors at the University of Michigan and received his doctorate from Wayne State University’s School of Medicine.
“I think GRCC is unique to any other higher education in our area. The four-year colleges do wonderful things but if one of them were to leave, we would lament but we’d be ok. Community colleges are the pillar,” Buzzitta said. “It does things that the other colleges don’t do so we need to support it. We need to keep making it better…”
This was GRCC President Charles Lepper’s first time attending Scholarfest and he shared that was happy to support student scholarships and honor Buzzitta’s contributions to the college.
“This is my first time attending this event and it’s such a privilege to honor Dr. Buzzitta,” Lepper said. “As you know from my comments, he has made so many contributions to the college but also to see the people from the community who are supporting GRCC. It’s amazing… It ultimately benefits our student’s ability to get scholarships.”
This year the Secchia Institute for Culinary Education had a fun twist on how they wanted to cater this year’s event. Following the Italian heritage of Buzzitta, the institute brought five alumni back to campus to pair with five current GRCC students to create both a cuisine and dessert. Guests were given three wine corks to vote on which team had the best dishes.
Werner Absenger, Director of the Secchia Institute for Culinary Education, was very pleased with how the event turned out and was excited to see alumni work with the current students.
“We thought about how we have alumni who have personal chefs’ businesses. We also have a personal chef certificate program, where we currently have a bunch of students enrolled. So why don’t we just combine them,” said Absenge “We put the word out to alumni who we know have personal chef businesses and saw if they wanted to contribute their time to this event.”
The winner of the contest was Chef Darrin Mayweather, director of hospitality at The 1530 events venue and co-owner and executive chef of Social Arts LLC. He created a delicious chicken marsala that was sweet and tender, as well as a vanilla panna cotta dessert with strawberry puree and garnished with a single mint.
“It was a beautiful thing, it was really about the students. They were hands-on and pretty much involved in every step of the process,” Mayweather said. “It was cool to see them be excited about it and truly take our leadership and constructive criticism, because being a chef, that’s what it’s about.”
From sponsorships, donations and ticket sales, Scholarfest brought in around $147,000 in revenue. While this number is before expenses, the Executive Director of the Foundation Erin Van Egmond has taken steps to ensure that most of the money will go back to the students.
“After expenses, we’ll see in a couple of weeks what that nets out to be, but the wonderful thing is the expenses are low because we have it here on campus,” said Egmond. “We do that intentionally to get people back to campus but to also keep the expense low so the majority of it can go to scholarships.”
