|
Hundreds Pack Price Center Ballroom
for Holiday Pancake Breakfast and Craft Fair
Ioana Patringenaru | December 18, 2006
|
| 32nd Annual Holiday Pancake Breakfast |
|
They came. They ate. They shopped. They gave.
Hundreds of UCSD staff members packed the Price Center Ballroom Wednesday for pancakes, sausages and holiday fun during the 32rd annual Holiday Pancake Breakfast organized by the UCSD Staff Association. About 950 people bought tickets for the event, said Ange Mason, who chaired the pancake breakfast committee this year.
Top administrators waited on staff members. In all, 29 VIPs put in one-hour shifts from 7 to 9 a.m., Mason said. Chancellor Marye Anne Fox poured coffee from 7 to 8:15 a.m. Vice Chancellors served food.
|
| Taking pictures with Ol' Saint Nick. |
|
Ho Ho the holiday elf, also known as Shaun Travers, director of UCSD’s LGBT Resource Center, roamed the ballroom in a fur-trimmed red hat, black vest, green pants and boots outfitted with sleigh bells. He was trying to spread holiday cheer, he explained, though the real comic in the family is his brother, “Ha Ho.” Another brother is an Olympic skier. His is name is “Ta Ho,” Ho Ho/Travers said.
Meanwhile, groups of employees waited in line to
have their picture taken with Santa. Ata Koryurek
and his co-workers in the department of psychiatry
have been attending the pancake breakfast for eight
years. “I can see we’re getting older
and wiser,” the director of financial affairs
said with a smile. “For myself, I’m getting
balder.”
 |
| From left: Sami Faile, Marcia Strong, Darlene Mercado and Marilyn Russell from Student Organizations and Leadership Opportunities enjoying their breakfast. |
|
After staff members ate their fill, many did some
holiday shopping at the first full-blown crafts fair
held during the breakfast, in the foyer of the Price
Center Ballroom. It sure beats shopping at the mall,
said Jackie Stauch, an administrative assistant in
medical genetics. “You see your friends, she
said. “And the prices are very good.”
Stauch bought presents for co-workers and teachers, including key rings, scented soaps and baskets made of pine needles collected on campus. In fact, basket weaver Judy Schulman, who works in Core Bio Services, was making brisk business and had sold about 20 of her wares. A few yards away, Heather Hire, the MSO for general internal medicine, was selling a wide variety of goodies made by herself, her family and her friends. It was her first crafts fair. “I survived,” she said, adding magnets and pins, reasonably priced at $2, were selling well.
 |
From left: student Laura Quan and staff member
Tiffany Rodriguez volunteered to help out at the
UCSD Staff Association toy drive. |
|
Staff members also could reach out to the needy Wednesday
morning. Several staff associations were collecting
toys, clothes and eyeglasses. In the Price Center
Ballroom, piles of toys waited to be taken to children
in the burn unit at the UCSD Medical Center and Kaiser
Permanente’s pediatric unit. Volunteers sorted
them out into bins by age range, from infants to pre-teens
and teenagers. A long table was covered with plush
toys. About one-third of the toys were donated during
the pancake breakfast, said German Cervantes, a programmer
analyst in the department of chemistry and biochemistry.
“It’s going great,” he said.
|
