Guy Mason auctioneer Richard Spigler, president of Savoy Suites Hotel, and Councilmember Mary Cheh, with reelection bag
The enthusiastic, animated crowd filled the ballroom of the Savoy Suites Hotel on Thursday evening for the annual Friends of Guy Mason fundraiser. They were there to catch up with each other, to trade stories of growing up using the rec center and to enjoy the food and drink from neighborhood restaurants and businesses and the hotel’s hospitality -- and to reafirm the importance of community centers for recreation and sports.
Guests recalled how Guy Mason, the public recreation center on Calvert Street just west of Wisconsin Avenue, was originally built as a “reform school” for “bad boys.’ But by the late 1980s, the disrepair, including becoming a haven for rats, had rendered the facility unusable. This led Richard Spigler, newly arrived to lead the Savoy Suites, to work with the community to make the field playable, including paying for the tear-down of the old, unsafe bleachers and announcer’s stand.
The high point of the evening was the live auction of lunch with Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh at the hotel. The fast-talking auctioneer Richard Spigler was introduced by the president of the Friends Dan Melman of WC & AN Miller Realtors. With the Councilmember stoking the crowd with a promise “to tell things that are not to be told,” the bidding topped-off at $2100. It was won by a consortium of friends and neighbors headed by Mary Abbajay, a partner in the Careerstone Group, an organization development and professional training firm.
Also enjoying the event were: Caryl King, Guy Mason’s site manager, Rick Gersten, founder if urbanigloo.com, a non-exclusive apartment finder service in the Washington area, his wife, Vicki Gersten, owner of Jonah's Treehouse offering innovative play and movement classes for young children, Meg Markham, treasurer of the Friends of Guy Mason, Jean-Michel Giraud and June Kress of the Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place, Jonathan Taylor of Sotheby’s International Realty and Guy Mason’s friends and neighbors Mary Ann Floto, Holly Pollinger, Andy MacDonald, Marie-Louise Murville and Jane and Bob Loeffler.
Ann Scoffier and Rebecca Roberts, Friends of Guy Mason, join
Dan Melman, the president of the Friends.
Rick Gersten (left) and wife, Vicki Gersten, (right) flank friends Bob and Jane Loeffler
Friend Mary Ann Floto with site manager Caryl King
Mary Abbajay has the combination of winning bid for $2100 marked on her shoulder
for lunch with Councilmember Mary Cheh
Jean-Michel Giraud and June Kress
of the Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place
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