Salt City Dishes hosts annual dinner to give funding to community projects
Applicants give five-minute pitches at the dinner to explain their ideas for community projects and encourage attendees to volunteer. Photo courtesy of Salt City Dishes
After graduating from Syracuse University, Stasya Erickson liked the city and people of Syracuse so much, she ended up staying and having her now nearly 1-year-old son. But Erikson wanted to do something more — she wanted to devise a project that would allow her son to be proud of the city he’s from.
This led her to create Salt City Dishes, or DISHES, a crowdfunded dinner that unites local residents through food, live music and projects that affect the Syracuse community. Since the nonprofit’s debut in January 2011, the organization has funded nine community projects, ranging from a volunteer snow shoveling brigade to a poetry slam series to a New Orleans-style brass band.
Erickson, now a co-director of the organization, has helped it grow from a strictly art-based event to a community project that works to enrich the lives of Syracuse residents.
“If you want to see people just having a super good time in late February, it’s a really good place to get a taste of that,” Erickson said.
This year’s event will be held Feb. 21 at All Saints Parish near Manley Fieldhouse. Four competing groups will present their project ideas in front of the crowd.
Attendees pay $20 for admission to sample local food, wine and music, and they vote on the project they want to win. DISHES then donates the proceeds earned from admission to the winning projects: First place receives $2,000, and second place is given a prize of $500, according to their website.
Sarah McIlvain, a volunteer with the program since its inception, said there’s more freedom in having the attendees choose who they want to donate to.
You’re not being knocked over the head, saying support heart disease, support cancer and feeling guilty not doing it. They like the concept of letting people decide what they’re going to support.Sarah McIlvain
Local photographers, videographers, chefs and musicians are among the volunteers helping to produce the annual event, according to its website.
“It really takes on the dreams of the people who are putting it on,” Erickson said. “We’ve got different volunteers, and all those people just add a different twist.”
The projects that don’t receive funding still benefit from the exposure DISHES provides, said Annalena Davis, a co-director of DISHES. After giving a five-minute pitch, sign up sheets are available for attendees to jot their names down, network and offer support.
“There’s not really much like it in the Syracuse community where you can find a way to fund your idea and actually make it actionable,” Erickson said. “It’s an opportunity to be creative, fund and reimagine Syracuse.”
DISHES is not just a two-hour evening of food and forum. After the event, the funded projects are brought to life. Last year’s winner, New Orleans-style marching band Second Line Syracuse, used its grant to energize the streets of Syracuse with live music and various celebrations. Four months after winning, the group held a parade to celebrate International Make Music Day. Earlier this month, it held a Mardi Gras block party celebration downtown, according to the DISHES website.
Davis said one of her favorite parts of the event is being involved from the fall applications process to when the food is served.
It’s pretty neat to see that take off. You just have this really great idea and you can make it happen.Annalena Davis
For a project idea to be considered, it must demonstrate an element of pride in the city of Syracuse, Erickson said. Second Line does just that — one of the band’s drummers has the unmistakable Syracuse University “S” printed on the head of his drum.
At this year’s dinner, Second Line Syracuse will present what it’s done with the funding it received from DISHES.
The idea for DISHES was developed in 2010 during a “pretty raw brainstorming session” at the Roji Tea Lounge on East Washington Street. The original thought came from Rachel Somerstein, a former director for the organization, after she was inspired by a similar dinner she had attended in Brooklyn, New York.
In past years, DISHES named winners such as The Forget-Me-Nots, a chorus providing persons with dementia opportunities to practice and perform music in front of an audience. In 2014, second place went to Westside Walks, a volunteer snow shoveling brigade that clears sidewalks in the Westside, an area that needs the most attention.
Organizations like those are the reason that Erickson said DISHES is so important to the Syracuse community.
“At the event, I think you’re finally like, ‘Oh, this is why I put in all these hours to make DISHES happen, because it’s a really powerful event with lots of great ideas,” Erickson said. “People in the community are getting a chance to be heard, and that’s very moving.”
