Rockaway Creates’ Upcoming Gala

By Dan Guarino

Just over a year from announcing its own creation, the non-profit Rockaway Creates is getting ready to celebrate 11 other “amazing” non-profits at its Winter Wonderment Gala on Saturday, January 20.

The evening, to be held from 6 to 10 p.m. at the new Jade event space on Beach 129th Street, will feature “fanfare, food, festivities and fun,” including entertainment from DJ Hey Leonex, a three-course gourmet dinner buffet, with vegan options, beer, wine and sangria, a specialty drink for the occasion, dessert, music, goodie bags, raffles, prizes and dancing. Rockaway Creates confirms tickets are still available at www.rockawaycreates.org/gala, and also potential sponsors can contact them at hello@rockawaycreates.org.

First and foremost, Rockaway Creates chairperson Dana Humphrey explains, “The goal of this gala is not to raise money. Our mission for this exquisite evening is to gather all the people helping the Rockaway community together under one roof. We want everyone to get to know each other, put a face to a name, dance, be merry and celebrate so that future collaborations are easier and more fruitful.

“Rockaway Creates is interested in uniting the peninsula of Rockaway from tip to tip, including our friends and neighbors in Broad Channel,” she says.

Among those groups scheduled to be spotlighted are Rockaway’s Graybeards, working to fundraise and help friends and neighbors, local growers Edgemere Farm,  FRANC (Far Rockaway Arverne Nonprofit Coalition), whose member organizations work to serve young people and conduct work within the Rockaways, the community service and veteran’s group YANA/Veterans in Command and ARF-ARF, the Allied Rockaway Foundation for Animal Recreation and Fitness, which promotes animal welfare and helps maintain Rockaway’s dog parks.

Honorees will also include the non-profit QEDC (Queens Economic Development Corporation) with its mission support and grow small businesses, Rockaway’s Kiwanis, helping to raise funds for local causes, and Materials For The Arts (MFTA) which has long provided materials free of charge to many Rockaway organizations. Rounding out the honorees list are Rockaway WISH, which works to raise money and create events with an emphasis on causes affecting women and children, RISE (Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability & Equity), providing civic engagement and youth development programs in social and environmental causes, and Gotham Whale, founded to study, advocate for and educate about the whales and marine mammals that are now so prevalent in Rockaway and New York.

“One of the things that I’ve always loved about Rockaway is how the community looks to help and uplift the people around them,” notes treasurer Galit Tsadik. “And Rockaway Creates is taking this opportunity to give back and acknowledge all of the good work that local nonprofits have done over the years.”

Organized in late 2022 by Tsadik, Humphrey, Shane Kulman and Samantha Cintron, Rockaway Creates’ aim has been to promote and connect individuals, entrepreneurs, and small businesses, develop and show local arts and artists, and both build and bring in new business supporting enterprises all up and down Rockaway. “Rockaway Creates is a little pocket of treasures,” says co-chair Cintron. Board secretary Kulman describes it as “a lifeline for hope, creativity and possibility,” welcoming all and ready to support locals to strengthen the community by advocating for collaboration, and creativity that benefits Rockaway.

With their upcoming big event, Rockaway Creates will be celebrating that creativity, their mission and those possibilities, and looking to strengthen bonds with those non-profit service groups they honor at their Winter Wonderment Gala.

Photos by Dan Guarino