The St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral is serving its 89th Lebanese dinner this weekend — and that’s a long time to keep a fundraising event going.
That fact is not lost on the generation of volunteers in their 40s and 50s who have realized it’s time for them to start carrying the tradition forward and learning its ins and outs from still-working volunteers in their 70s, 80s — even 90s.
This year, says Alexis Phillips — first-time co-chair of the event — the Gen-X and older millennial members of the congregation are stepping up in a big way. Paired with veteran mentors, some of whom have been putting together the dinner for decades, they’re taking over key positions as the heads of the cabbage, kibba and baklawa committees.
“This year, more than maybe others, we’ve tried to really put people in place to be trained to put it on and continue it,” said Phillips, a third-generation chair whose grandmother — the late Lorise Cohlmia — led the dinner off and on from the late 50s through the 1980s, and whose mother, the late Mickey Cohlmia, led many committees through the years.