Of Silvia Scarselletta
Last Monday 6 MayProfessional Institute for Food and Wine and Hotel Hospitality Services “Ugo Tognazzi” of Velletri hosted the charity dinner in memory of Willy Monteiro Duarteorganized by former students of theState Professional Institute for Food, Wine and Hotel Hospitality Services “Michelangelo Buonarroti” by Fiuggias well as his friends.
This second edition of the event follows the one held in January last year; also on that occasion, the young creators of “Together with Willy” they had taken to the field by proposing a charity dinner in the Hotel Institute of Fiuggi.
As already done previously – donating the proceeds partly to the “Insieme” association of Alatri and partly for the purchase of uniforms for economically disabled students – this year too the entire profit will be donated to charity, with the addition of another important innovation: structuring, in the two-year period 2024 – 2025, a temporary agency, a real community of hotel facilities, thus making it “Together with Willy” the communication bridge between the working and school reality.
In fact, these are not simple and usual dinners, but these events, and this project in itself, they represent something much bigger, as the kids themselves have been trying to explain for some time, especially through their social channelswhere we read that “ICW is not just an event, it is a family in which each of us has a fundamental role, and each of you has the right to be part of it and feel an active and integral part of this beautiful community”.
The dinner, which was also enriched by the participation of the institute’s students and professors, it achieved great success and above all massive participation; the room, packed with friends, family, journalists, onlookers, sponsors and relevant figures, saw the continuous interaction of the chefs with the public, in an exchange of ideas, thoughts and, above all, explanations of each individual dish; in fact, nothing was done by chance: it was to all intents and purposes a “multi-handed” dinner against all forms of discrimination and violence; the icing on the cake was the final dessert in the shape of a balloon, which arrived at the table with a real white balloon tied to the plate with the writing “ALWAYS WITH US”, in anticipation of the touching moment that occurred shortly thereafter: a launch of white balloons into the sky by all the participants. There, among the crowd, there were also Willy’s family members who huddled between the organizers and friends, full of all the love and closeness they were receiving; This was an extremely emotional moment, perhaps the most heartfelt of the evening, which saw hugs, tears and smiles of sharing, where the same and identical words resonated in everyone’s heart: “We will always be with you”.
Union, respect and collaboration were therefore the fundamental values on which this project was based and will always be based, and the chef Samuele Chelucci – the founder of “Together with Willy” – expresses the deepest meaning with his words, full of gratitude and pride, inevitable in the face of such closeness and sharing: “the emotion I felt was indescribable, especially seeing Willy’s family there with us. We will continue to grow because we are now a family and the support we receive every day only makes us understand that we must not stop. The ultimate meaning is only one, to be with him despite everything. One of the dishes presented is my creation, the “Pasticcio di Samu”, and was born in memory of one of the last chats with Willy, in which he expressed his desire to have an experience in France. I created this typically French dish because I wanted to do something for him and this is a way of saying, to tell him, that by doing it myself, we did it together”.
