Review of the Foggy Bottom West End Village 10th Anniversary Celebration

The Foggy Bottom West End Village officially opened in October 2013. In early October 2023, we celebrated our 10th Anniversary with a party at Ris Restaurant, attended by over 100 people. The event celebrated our 11 founding board members and all the good the Village has accomplished in the past decade.

As always, the food from Ris was delicious, the wine donated by Mark Budd was very impressive, and Lynn Cates’ slide show provided a visual record of where we started and who we are today. Councilmember Brooke Pinto joined us, as did Council Chairman Phil Mendelson. Former Councilmember Jack Evans also attended.

The raffles provided six participants with various game tickets from Council members Kenyan McDuffie, Christina Henderson, Brooke Pinto, Robert White, Brianne Nadeau, and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson in addition to gift certificates from Ris Restaurant or Clyde’s Restaurant Group.

Our beloved visionary founders Susan Haight, Jackie Lemire, Lorna Grenadier, Monroe Wright, John Seichter, Myrna Fawcett and CB Wooldridge were in attendance, and each received an engraved kaleidoscope from the Village and a letter of appreciation from Mayor Bowser. Rebecca Coder’s posthumous award was received by her husband, Chris Haspel. Unfortunately, our other three founders, Carl Vacketta, Beverly Gyllenhaal, and Mary Bernstein were not able to join us, but will receive their awards later.

Click here to view Lynn's beautiful pictures from the celebration. Click on the video below to watch Lynn's heartwarming slideshow providing a visual history of the village. Click here for a pdf version of the celebration program.

All our Anniversary Celebration donors are listed below and we can’t say enough about how much their contributions helped us keep the event at a low cost for all our members.  We especially want to thank Barbara Kahlow for her generous donation of $10,000.

As we now move into our second decade of service to the community, we are excited about all that comes next!

-Denise