NONPROFITS AROUND TOWN: TESSA's Pasta in the Park

TESSA’s 18th annual “Pasta in the Park” maintained a winning tradition, enticing 500 guests to spend a sunny, summer evening outdoors at Myron Stratton Complex on Aug. 21.

Hungry pasta samplers raised an estimated $85,000 to provide services for victims of domestic and sexual violence. TESSA responds to more than 15,000 calls for crisis intervention and information each year.

Taking home this year’s white champion-chefs’ jackets were the repeat winners from American National Bank (“Tastiest Sauce”), the colorful Jenny Craig hippie team (“Best Presentation”) and a group of Needlecone Lane neighbors who snared the “Best Overall” prize.

After the tasting it was time for dinner when a young woman, admittedly nervous, stood before the hundreds of strangers to tell them why “Pasta in the Park” is so important. She had been attacked by a man she thought loved her, a man she knew in high school and reconnected with 15 years later.

The love story lasted about a month, she said. He alienated her from her friends, tore her hair out, hit her head against the floor and then he started crying, asking her to forgive him. She did, a number of times.

Before the final incident a friend had admitted she was “scared” about the upcoming weekend and didn’t want to go to the victim’s “funeral.” Unfortunately, the young mother told her boyfriend what the friend had said. He got angrier and angrier, she said, and beat her into unconsciousness before trying to cut her throat. “There was so much blood, it looked like a murder scene.” He had gone too far, he told her, so he was going to kill her and then kill himself. Somehow there was a “guardian angel,” she escaped from the house, naked, and collapsed in a neighbor’s yard.

Hospitalized for four days, she sustained numerous serious injuries. Some were defensive wounds from pushing the knife away. The young woman went though extensive counseling with TESSA and “when I look back what hurts the most is my two daughters who saw that I had let a man like this into my life.” 

Now the woman wants to be a TESSA advocate. “It’s still a daily struggle to put the pieces together. But I stood up for myself and my abuser paid the consequences. I can tell other victims I have been there.”

The evening ended with a spirited, supportive live auction led by auctioneer Pete Husak and his team, followed by dancing to Phat Daddy and the Phat Horn Doctors. Volunteering, tongue in cheek, to sing with the band was TESSA Executive Director Connie Brachtenbach.

More photos: http://tinyurl.com/2eaec6c