by Aden Chua
December 7, 2023

On November 27, Holiday Correspondent Aden J. Chua interviewed Patricia (Patty) Hume, Development & Alumni Coordinator, about the Encore White Christmas event and all (or at least most) of its holiday features.

ADEN
What exactly are you doing for the Encore event?
PATTY
Well, I’m the organizer of the event. This is one of the largest annual fundraisers for the Genesee Community College Foundation. It’s an event that has been here for over 30 years, and it typically includes an elegant dinner and holiday pops concert, with all the proceeds going directly to the Genesee Community College Student Scholarship Program. It started when our theater first opened, and at the end of that event, it was such a success, folks had said “Why don’t you have an encore?” And so, our Encore event was born, and each year since then, we’ve had this event. This is our 32nd year.
ADEN
I see your flier says it is on Friday, December 15 from 5:00-9:00pm in the William W. Stuart Forum.
PATTY
Yes, it’s Friday evening, and we have a cocktail reception from 5:00-6:00, and then from 6:00 to about 7:15, we’ll have a nice gourmet dinner, which is prepared by our AVI Food Systems staff. It gets a lot of excitement and a lot of attention because we’ll be decorating the Forum at least a few days in advance in preparation for the event, and then when the dinner concludes at about 7:15, we guide our guests through the cafeteria and over to the theater in preparation for the holiday pops concert by the Genesee Symphony Orchestra, which is the actual orchestra in residence here at the college.
ADEN
How has Encore evolved?
PATTY
Each year, we usually reach out to a member in our community. It could be someone who served on our board of directors, a friend, or a donor to the college, to see if they’d be interested in being the co-chair(s) at this event. Usually, it’s a husband and wife or often business partners. It varies from year to year, but they set the theme and the itinerary for the event, and this is all done on a volunteer basis. We also have a committee of volunteers who support the co-chairs and help bring their vision of what they have for the Encore event alive. This year’s co-chairs are Jeremy and Sandy Liles. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Batavia area, but they are the owners of Oliver’s Chocolates, and they established that they wanted to have a White Christmas, and the theme is based on the 1954 film classic, White Christmas. It’s very traditional. It was a blockbuster Hollywood film back in its day and it’s just a very elegant, traditional holiday format that we’re going to have this year.
ADEN
Is this considered a charity event?
PATTY
Yes. The GCC Foundation is a 501c3, not-for-profit organization. Everything that the Foundation does is to help our students. All the proceeds from this event go directly to supporting student scholarships here at GCC, and we’re looking to achieve a fundraising goal of $30,000 this year. The Foundation is led by a board of directors that are all volunteers, and many of them serve as volunteers for this event and other fundraising events. So, the Foundation not only raises funds for student scholarships; they have also been instrumental in raising money for many of the buildings that are here on campus such as the Wolcott Humphrey Student Union, the Conable Technology Building, the Richard C. Call Arena, the Student Success Center, and the Roz Steiner Art Gallery.
ADEN
Are there any other activities with this event?
PATTY
There are! We really try to engage students in this event, and this year, the fashion program has put together some beautiful garments that are from the time period of the 1950s. They’ll be doing a beautiful display on the Forum stage. We have a beautiful sleigh along with the garments on display. Many of those who attend this event are community leaders, donors, college administration, trustees and business owners. We’re excited that Senator George Borrello will be in attendance this year. It’s a wonderful way to bring attention to the college, to our students, and to our programs here. In addition, we also have student volunteers from the Forum Players who manage the coat check which is another nice feature for our guests. When it comes time to go to the theater for the concert, they usher our guests into their seats because all the seating is assigned seating via tickets for the event. I try to engage as many of our students as possible. The attendees love to see our students, hear from our students, and engage with them. I mean, this is what it’s all about, to support GCC students through our scholarship programs, so it’s wonderful to have them involved in the actual event too.
ADEN
Would GCC happen to have events for other holidays, like Hanukkah or Kwanzaa?
PATTY
This event just tends to fall within the holiday season. Last year, we did back it up to November. We’ve had everything from beautiful weather to blizzards, so it all depends on when our co-chairs want to host the event. A lot of our international groups and others on campus try to do things through the Office of Student Engagement and Inclusion to highlight other types of religious denominations and holidays, not only within the United States, but internationally as well, just to bring more culture to our students that they might not be exposed to otherwise. Encore has always been in early December. We’ve had different venue themes from icicles and pearls to Return to Oz. It tends to focus more on the kickoff to the holiday season. It typically does fall after Thanksgiving. It’s just nice to bring folks together in community and support our student scholarships. A lot of it falls to our co-chairs as to what theme or venue they want to have for these events. This year we’ve gone back to a more traditional format. The past few years, before COVID, we had live bands come out to play pop music in the arena. This year’s co-chairs wanted to bring it back to the more traditional format. During COVID, when everything was shut down, we really had to get creative. We did have a holiday-type concert with the Genesee Symphony Orchestra and the Genesee Chorale Chorale (who had to cancel all their engagements during the pandemic). It was all recorded virtually throughout October and played online virtually. People bought tickets, received a link, and we were still able to enjoy the joy of Encore! We also got creative to support some area businesses when many things were closed. In addition to the concert, we engaged with restaurants in the four county area (GLOW-Genesee, Livingston, Orleans and Wyoming) and had dinners set up, so folks could either go and give them their gift certificate or they could pick up an actual dinner, bring it home, and they could watch the concert that evening online. By being creative and working together, we were able to keep the tradition going even during COVID.
ADEN
This event is bigger than I thought.
PATTY
It is big. Typically, on average, about 300 people attend this event. So, we kind of call it our annual wedding! It’s a lot of fun. We’ve had a lot of folks come back here year after year. We really look forward to this event, seeing a nice holiday concert, enjoying the music and good food, and seeing friends and family supporting a good cause.
ADEN
What kind of decorations do you have for this event?
PATTY
We’re going to be welcoming our guests through the main entrance in the Forum area. We have some students who have volunteered to sing all different kinds of holiday music to welcome folks come in. As folks come into the Forum, we’ll have some lit trees, and we’ll have some nice overhead lighting in the Forum. Each of our tables will be fully decorated. We use linen table clothes and napkins and have beautiful center pieces. The Forum stage is going to be stunning. I can’t wait to see the display that Laura Taylor and her fashion students put together. They have a life-sized sleigh that they’re putting up on the stage as well as trees, and the students will have their garments displayed. It should be stunning! If anything is like it’s been done in the past, it’s beautiful. So yes, lots of use with lighting, holiday wreaths, and artificial candles (we can’t have real candles due to fire hazard).
ADEN
As for the Christmas trees, do you also have a big Christmas tree as a center piece somewhere?
PATTY
We will not, because this year, the entire Forum floor will be full of tables. And, not only that, but we’ll also have a small three-piece jazz band playing background music during the dinner hour and the cocktail reception, and then we also have a complimentary photo booth. This year, the co-chairs opted to go with the photographer who will take guest’s photos, and we’ll give a complimentary printout to guests to take home along with a holiday ornament. It has a little center circle that pops out and guests can put their photograph inside. It’s just a nice little way of saying thank you to our guests for supporting our event and our students’ scholarships at GCC.
ADEN
As for the Christmas trees again, do you use synthetic or real Christmas trees?
PATTY
Synthetic, just due to fire hazards and things. We’re not allowed to use real trees. We have about 15-20 trees, and we do have some that are larger. We have a few that are seven feet, other ones are smaller, more like accent trees. So, we try to intersperse them throughout the Forum area, just to help bring some festive feel to it. Also, the theater students will be decorating a large tree in the lobby of the theater. It’s just a nice welcome for our guests. We’ll put little touches all over. If you’d like any pictures or anything after the event, there’s a picture of our co-chairs and our logo on the event website: https://gccfoundationinc.org/encore/. For further information about the GCC Foundation, see the Foundation page on the college website: www.genesee.edu/give/gcc-foundation/.