Irish Fun That Does Some Good

Pat McGrath

The St. Patrick’s Day Parade is not only about celebrating Irish culture, where “a ton of people” have fun, but also about getting together “to do some good” and “affect people’s lives.”

That’s how parade co-director Pat McGrath described the donation of food and money to Mother Marianne’s West Side Kitchen on Wednesday, March 22.

McGrath, along with parade food drive co-chairs Bernie Adorino and Chris Hoke, presented an oversized check to kitchen manager Mike Pilat, representing $2,000 that the parade raised for the soup kitchen (some $1,600 in cash from spectators and another $400 from a private donor).

In addition, Adorino delivered over 900 food items to the soup kitchen. More than 550 items were collected by Notre Dame Elementary School prior to the parade and over 350 foodstuffs were collected during the parade, Adorino noted.

It all started 14 years ago when Hoke and the parade committee were looking for help in starting a food drive and Adorino was looking for a good cause to support. They linked up and it has been a good-deed partnership ever since – with his Adorino Construction company providing manpower, wheel barrels and a pickup with flatbed trailer to collect food along the parade route as well as canisters to collect cash.

And this 14th food drive, Hoke noted, was the second biggest in donations.

A WKTV News Channel 2 photojournalist covered the check presentation and asked Adorino a simple question:
“Why?”

His reply was equally simple:
“This food and money are going to…help people who are less fortunate.”

Photojournalist interviews Bernie Adorino.