By KAYLA J. MARSH
Staff Writer
MIDDLETOWN — A fundraiser that is aimed at assisting local charities and organizations will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, too.
American Legion Post 515 will hold the 10th annual Corned Beef Dinner from 5-8 p.m. on March 12 at VFW Post 2179 at 460 Route 36 in the Port Monmouth section of the township.
For a $5 donation, attendees can take part in the 50/50 raffle, and tickets for the dinner may be purchased in advance or at the door for $15.
All proceeds support the Kristin Kinlin Memorial Fund.
“American Legion Post 515 is what they call a homeless post, and all of our functions we work through the VFW Post 2179, and we’ve been with them for about 30 years now,” said Bill Kinlin, finance officer for American Legion Post 515.
“This function started out with sandwiches in the bar as a way of drawing attention to our 50/50 … and it just built to where last year we provided over 200 dinners.”
Kristin Kinlin passed away on April 10, 2006 in Cleveland, Ohio, at age 28. Born in Red Bank, she resided in Middletown for most of her life and was a classified and legal coordinator at The Courier News, a newspaper based out of Somerset County.
“Kristin is my daughter, and she died young and people said, ‘why don’t we name the memorial for her,’ and so for the past 10 years it has been, but this is basically our big fundraiser for our charities and while we raise a couple thousand dollars that day, we give so much more away to local area charities,” Kinlin said.
At the dinner, children can enjoy face painting, sno-cones, cotton candy, pipers, drummers and dancers, while adults are welcome to enjoy music and karaoke in the bar at 8 p.m., with entertainment featuring Joe McGrath.
“When we started out it was basically just a scholarship and we gave it to Mater Dei, which was the school Kristin attended before she went on to Monmouth University, but after a while we said ‘there’s really nobody left at the school who knows who she is so why don’t we use the money to take care of the community’ and we expanded our donations to a lot more people, groups and charities,” Kinlin said.
