Upcoming Events or Fundraisers

• Corrigan Award Dinner

Middle Earth, a local non-profit agency serving youth for over 30 years, is hosting its annual award dinner, at which the organization will honor Steve Mandraccia with the Margery and Tom Corrigan Humanitarian Award. There will also be a special recognition of the North Branch Reformed Church for their thirty-four (34) years of consecutive support of Middle Earth's programs.

The award dinner will take place on Friday, November 17, 2006 at Madeline's, 1 Vosseller Avenue, Bound Brook, NJ. The event begins with cocktails at 6:30 p.m. followed by dinner. The cost of the dinner is fifty-five dollars ($55) for adults and twenty-five dollars ($25) for children under 12, with all proceeds of the event benefiting Middle Earth. Donations are welcome.

Steve Mandraccia is a supervisor of the Somerset County's juvenile probation department. He works with youth in a number of ways, including serving on the Somerset County Youth Services Commission, Somerset Co. Program Development Committee, Somerset Co. Juvenile Firewatch Group, NJ Probation Juvenile Managers Committee, NJ School-based Probation Supervision Working Group and NJ Probation Positive Intervention Committee. In these roles, he has been a valuable partner with Middle Earth in serving local youth.

Mandraccia is also very active in the community. For St. John's Episcopal Church, he acts as a youth group advisor, warden and liaison for the 30 Hour Famine, which fights hunger and poverty worldwide. Mandraccia has served as both a soccer coach and tae kwon do instructor for youth, and he is the Bridgewater Soccer Association's liaison to Camden STAR program, which accumulates soccer gear for Camden, NJ city youth for the Rutgers STAR mentoring program.

One of the most outstanding roles in which Mandraccia has helped Middle Earth is in the creation and organization of the "Big Air Show" at the agency's Tour of Somerville event. The Tour of Somerville is a four-day event of competitive cycling for professionals and amateurs over Memorial Day weekend hosted by Middle Earth. Six years ago, Mandraccia created the Big Air Show, which takes place during Monday's Tour of Somerville and features extreme sports displays and live music performances. The sports included at the show are skateboarding, in-line skating, BMX biking, and fencing. Mandraccia believes that extreme sports are an ideal way to introduce youth to the importance of recreational activities at an early age as well as model the special camaraderie that exhibits itself in skating and biking. These sports set a positive example and encourage kids to become involved in sport rather than perhaps being drawn into more risky behavior, something Mandraccia, and Middle Earth, combat in their daily work.

Middle Earth established the Margery and Tom Corrigan Humanitarian Award in 1997. The first recipients, the late Margery and Tom Corrigan, were honored for their continued and sustained commitment to Middle Earth and their community for the previous twenty-five years. Margery, best known for her generosity and belief in the basic goodness of each and every human being, served on Middle Earth's Board of Trustees and was a trained Youth Hotline volunteer. Tom was a trained counselor, teaching youth how to make good decisions and encourage youth to take responsibility for their actions. Past recipients include Donald Bowers, Arlyn Rus, Dan Puntillo, Steven Lieberman, Greg Carswell and William McCallum.

Middle Earth is a non-profit, community-based agency that has been offering services to adolescents for over 30 years. The agency provides prevention, intervention and crisis services to 1500 local youth annually to help them develop into responsible and productive members of our community. For more information on the organization, visit www.middleearthonline.org.

For additional information about the dinner or to attend, contact Amy DiIorio or Dan Puntillo at Middle Earth at 908-725-7223 or mddlearth@aol.com.

# # #