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It was a party on the grounds of the Greenwich Polo Club Sunday afternoon as hundreds enjoyed the game while supporting the Transportation Association of Greenwich and Pathways Inc.
Jim Boutelle, Executive Director of the Transportation Association of Greenwich said, “This is, I think, the third now TAG has been a beneficiary of Party at Polo and it is important to us because we need to raise close to half a million dollars a year to underwrite the 65,000 trips a year that we do at TAG.
“The best social services in the world and useless if you can’t get to them,” continued Boutelle. “We get people to Greenwich Adult Daycare, to dialysis, to after-school programs, so what we do is really important, not just to the elderly but to the handicapped and disabled as well.”
“Pathways is a non-profit agency here in town that serves the needs of individuals with severe mental illness” said Jim Weil, President of Pathways, Inc of Greenwich. “We offer housing to about 38 residents and we have a day program that serves about 40 people. Roughly six percent of people in America suffer from severe mental illness and 3% are severely schizophrenic. It knows no social or economic boundaries and so we decided we needed to come out of the closet if you will, and make people aware of us so we can get more support for a community of individuals that really don’t have much of a voice on their own.”
Local business owners said being able to support organizations that help the community is important.
Frank Gaudio, President and CEO of the First Bank of Greenwich said, “You need to support your local community. People need to start doing a little bit more. They don’t for various reasons we are trying to bring that back and this a great a event to do that.”
“The important thing that we try to strive for is, it is not about a beautiful glass building, it is about the people inside the building and the people inside that building care about the customers and the people and their surrounding community,” said Lou Liodori, General Manager of Mercedes-Benz of Greenwich. “You have to be a part of the community.”
For more information about the Transportation Association of Greenwich and Pathways Inc, visit www.ridetag.org and www.pathways-greenwich.org.
