By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

Led by the Charleston’s hospitality community, businesses large and small across the city have joined together for what’s being billed as the largest fundraiser in Lowcountry history to benefit the families of the nine firefighters killed in last week’s Sofa Super Store fire.

The event, Dine for the Charleston Nine, will be 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. July 8 in the Grand Ballroom of the Charleston Place Hotel.

The evening will feature tastings from more than 40 restaurants accompanied by wine, beer and other beverages from local distributors. Music will be provided by Quentin Baxter and Cool John Ferguson, a member of Taj Mahal’s band, who is flying in from his home in Austin, Texas, specifically for this event.

There will also be silent and live auctions, with all proceeds raised going to the families, said Mickey Bakst, general manager of the hotel’s Charleston Grill, which is organizing the event.

In 2005, a smaller-scale event organized on a much tighter timeline raised more than $200,000 for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

“The Katrina event was a kind of ‘Oh my God,’ response to a tragedy that unfolded a great distance away,” Bakst said Tuesday morning. “While I’m proud of how the community responded then, and the Katrina victims, God bless them, still need help, I think the community is going to respond with even more of an open heart this time.

“These were our neighbors, after all, and the tragedy that befell them wasn’t just a tragedy for their nine families … it was a tragedy for all of us, the collective that is Charleston,” he said.

Bakst credited Paul Stracey, general manager of the Charleston Place Hotel, for getting the ball rolling on the benefit just days after the fire consumed the furniture store.

Stracey volunteered the hotel’s facilities and asked Bakst to call his friends in the hospitality committee to try to arrange an event on the par with the Katrina event two years ago.

“But what happened was, I called a friend, they call another, and then people started calling their vendors and other business people they knew and worked with, to see if they’d like to help,” Bakst said.

By last Saturday morning, when a meeting to discuss the benefit was held at Charleston Place, more than 40 people crowded into a conference room to pledge their support and lend a hand.

Frank Lee, executive chef at Slightly North of Broad, said all Maverick Southern Kitchens Inc.’s restaurants will be represented at the benefit, and with good cause—food service industry employees have historically had a “special” relationship with the city’s first responders.

“Part of it, I think, is the odd hours we keep, hours very similar to those of many of our firefighters and police officers and other emergency service personnel, and that helps to forge relationships,” Lee said.

“The other thing is, hardly a day goes by when one restaurant or another isn’t calling the fire department or the police department … it’s almost part of our business to have the occasional kitchen fire or a guest in distress, and (firefighters and the like) are people we depend on in the course of doing our business.”

But of course, the impact of the city of Charleston firefighter tragedy goes even deeper than that, Lee said.

“One of our servers at High Cotton was a cousin of one of those killed in the blaze,” he said. “And Chief Rusty Thomas is a long-time friend through our mutual involvement in the annual chili cook off held to raise funds for the SPCA.”

“You know, it’s been said a lot over the past several days, but it seems like everyone has some kind of connection to a firefighter,” Lee added. “In fact, Charlie Gantt, whose company provides our air conditioning and refrigeration service, is a firefighter in another community and was one of the guys who volunteered to stand watch at one of the city fire houses so the men there could go to the memorial at the coliseum on Friday.”

In addition to direct aid, like the donation of printing services, local businesses have also been donating items for auction. The Sanctuary has donated a weekend getaway golf package that Bakst valued at $8,000 to $10,000, and Darkness to Light is donating a table also valued in the $10,000 range.

Other donations to date range from offers of dental whitening services to power pressure washing and a portable generator to a private tour of the U.S. Capitol.

But that’s far from all that’s transpired since the planning of the benefit began to gain momentum.

Charleston artist Shannon Runquist has organized artists to do original portraits of each of the fallen firefighters, the original to be given to the individual families and copies to be given to each of the men’s fire stations.

Bakst said he’s currently seeking corporate sponsors to underwrite the project.

The Art Institute of Charleston has also stepped up to the plate, establishing an annual scholarship for members of the firefighters’ families.

“It’s really been all-consuming,” Bakst said. “I’ve gotten more than 50 e-mails a day and too many phone calls to count since Thursday from businesses wanting to know how they can help.”

Although the event was initially limited to 1,000 tickets, Bakst said based on the response he’s experienced, he now expects between 1,200 to 1,400 will be sold at $150 a piece. He said local companies are also being asked to purchase tables and to donate those seats to firefighters who might otherwise not be able to afford to attend.

Bakst said the benefit committee is also reaching out to some high-powered celebrity talent to aid the firefighters’ families. Bakst said he’s been actively pursuing former Beatle Paul McCartney, whose father was a fireman, to elicit his support, and that he’s been in touch with the Denis Leary Foundation about its playing a role in the benefit.

Leary, star of television’s “Rescue Me,” started the foundation after a cousin and a childhood friend were among six firefighters killed in the warehouse fire in Worcester, Mass in 1999.

The foundation is already accepting donations for the city of Charleston firefighters at https://www.learyfirefighters.org/donations_new.html.

Reservations for the Charleston Place benefit can be made by calling Table Maestro at (843) 329-4918. Bakst said he also can be reached with questions and donations of items to auction via e-mail at mbakst@charlestonplace.com or by phone at (843) 810-5960.

SUBSCRIBE | REPRINTS | CONTACT US

Phone: 843-849-3100    Fax: 843-849-3122