DiMaggio Has High Hopes for Spaghetti Dinner

Rhonda DiMaggio of Montville is hoping to get a plateful of RSVPs for the

Crouch, a young wife and mother, has cancer. The company that insures her has denied thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of claims, Crouch told Montville Patch reporter Stan DeCoster in December.

So DiMaggio, whose husband works with Crouch’s husband, has been devoting herself to helping.

She’s put together a series of events to raise funds for Crouch, and there’s another one on Sunday.

“Twenty people on Facebook said they were coming,” DiMaggio said Thursday. Staffers from Kellogg Marine, which has been very supportive of Crouch, have said they’re coming, as well. And DiMaggio is hoping for more RSVPs  between now and the event – partly because she’s hoping for as much support as possible, and partly to help her know how much food to make.

At the first fund-raising event, a vendor sale, also at , “there were well over 100 people,” DiMaggio says. “You couldn’t even see in there, the first few hours.”

The all-you-can-eat dinner is $10 for adults and $7 per child.  For more info, click here.

is helping out, donating10 pizzas and salads for each event. Also helping is Capa di Roma in East Hartford, which has donated sauce for each event. The owner’s sister went to school with Crouch, DiMaggio says, and he is happy to donate.

To RSVP, email DiMaggio at rhondatourville@sbcglobal.net, or call her at 860-319-3090, or Chris Potts at 860-514-3958.

Another fund-raiser is scheduled for Feb. 11, DiMaggio says, and this one is shaping up nicely.

It’s a Valentine’s Day vendor event and raffle, from noon to 4 p.m., also at Mohegan Fire House.  

Cheesecake maker The Sweet Spot will be there, along with River Chocolate and more than 20 other vendors, she says. Many, like Mary Kay and Avon, will have their new summer catalogs, too, she says.

is donating a raffle prize at each event, as well.

Also at that event, DiMaggio is going to do a cross-marketing push, giving each involved business’s cards and information to each other involved business, in hopes of cross-pollenating.

Crouch has had some positive news about her cancer, along with the sobering information that she is likely to have to have chemo treatments for the rest of her life. But the cancer has shrunk, and she has put on some weight, and is feeling positive, DiMaggio says.

“She is still in a positive mode,” she says, “She figures she is going to beat this.”

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story had the wrong adult price for the spaghetti dinner!