The ladies auxiliary of VFW Post 5390 will hold their very first, hopefully annual, spaghetti dinner on Friday to raise money for cancer research. 

The fundraiser kicks off at 6 p.m. as guests are greeted with door prizes and the opportunity to enter a split-the-pot raffle. Dinner will be served from 6-7, followed by music and dancing until 11 p.m.

The ladies auxiliary is, by and large, centered around an initiative to contribute to the community and other charitable causes in a philanthropic way. 

The women of the auxiliary donate their time to various charities as each individual in the auxiliary chooses their own.

Ladies auxiliary member and Senior Vice President Diane Holbridge, who is hosting the spaghetti dinner, chose cancer research as her charitable cause.

“Everybody knows somebody who has had this disease,” says Holbridge, “so when we were asked what we wanted to do I picked cancer because I know everyone has been touched by it in some way or another. This is my first event for cancer and, in October, I am going to run a bingo and all the money raised then will to go cancer research as well.”

Tickets, which are $10, are available through Diane at (401) 855-0231, or directly at the VFW Post at 822 Anthony Road. The event will include lively music and karaoke provided by DJ Mike Nasiff.  

“I’ve seen him at several different events and he’s given us a great deal. He is pretty much donating his time,” says Holdbrige of the event. 

Holdbrige is in the process of securing donations from various other local businesses that will be used as door and raffle prizes. 

This particular group of women is fairly new to Post 5390, as they have only been active for about a year. 

In this short time, the women have managed to organize several events and have many more in the works.

“We’ve just begun but we have all these ideas…We’ve been talking about doing a food pantry. We send out care packages to Iraq and that has been very rewarding,” says Holbridge of the young organization.

“People have been very generous with the care packages and bring all sorts of stuff they need. We send care packages to Iraq all throughout the year…People are good about sending packages around Christmas, but sometimes people forget they still need things the rest of the year.”