Poster for Barbecue Benefit Bash

Look out, everyone. Lou Duhamel is at it again.

Indeed, Lou, a Nashuan through-and-through who for decades has had his hand in one type of community related event or another – almost always in the most grueling behind-the-scenes role of event-organizer – is presently knee-deep in planning and organizing a barbecue fundraiser to benefit the Nashua Children’s Home.

But as one might expect when Lou Duhamel is involved, this isn’t going to be just a regular old barbecue with some live music and maybe a raffle and things like that.

For starters, mentioning there will be “live music” is a woefully inadequate description of what’s in store for everyone who is smartly picking up their tickets while there are still some left: The featured act will be Aces & Eights, the legendary Nashua-based band that scoffs at Father Time each time its members hop up on the stage for yet another sellout gig.

See accompanying information box for more details and to purchase tickets.

Dean Shalhoup

As of last week, 14 tables and a bunch of individual tickets had already been sold, Duhamel told me. In other words, folks, get your tickets or reserve your tables sooner rather than later.

The deadline to buy tickets is Aug. 15. No tickets will be sold at the door.

Assuming the weather cooperates, everything will take place outside on Alpine Grove’s spacious grounds. Bringing along lawn chairs or blankets is advised, Duhamel said.

Should the weather hit a few sour notes, the Alpine Grove ballroom can be utilized, he added.

For each $50 ticket sold, Duhamel said, $20 goes directly to the Children’s Home. Donations above that amount will, of course, be welcomed.

Courtesy photo Lou Duhamel, who is organizing a benefit bash for the Nashua Childrens Home, shown with his trademark long, white beard. (Courtesy photo)

Also contributing to the music scene at the bash will be Joe Birch, a Hollis native who spent eight years playing various venues in Florida before returning to the area last August.

While a student at Hollis High School, Birch was in a band called “Coldfinger” with some fellow students.

He likes to play “the cooler, less-heard songs,” but is known to throw in a couple of original tunes here and there, Birch said during a 2020 interview with The Telegraph.

Duhamel, meanwhile, said the idea for such a fundraiser hit him right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Optimistic – and hopeful – the limitations forced on society by the pandemic couldn’t last forever, Duhamel made some calls and was able to eventually get the ball rolling toward a future event in, say, a year or so.

He considers himself fortunate that people he reached out to for help responded enthusiastically. Some of the names that came to mind were Vince Tulley, Mike and Nick Tamposi, Deb Nash, Mark Prolman, Mike Slingerland and Mark and George Katis.

Duhamel paused and took a deep breath.

“My goal is to hit $10,000 … I think I can do that. It’s a lot, but I think I can hit it,” he said, stroking his trademark long, white beard.

“I’ve really enjoyed helping out these kids over the years,” he said, referring to the NCH residents, who currently number about 40.

“I just want to show them a little love … show them that we care about them,” Duhamel added.

Across the table, a woman who knows Duhamel quite well and who joined him at our get-together the other day expressed confidence that the target will be reached, and maybe even surpassed.

Lori Wilshire, who besides serving as president of the Board of Aldermen is the Children’s Home’s longtime business manager, said it all started with a phone call a while back.

“Lou called me about three, four months ago with the idea,” Wilshire said. “He knew we’d lost a couple of our bigger fundraisers because of the pandemic.

“I just said, ‘that’s great! Let’s do it,'” she added.

While NCH receives some state and federal funding, a lot of the programs and services it offers may not exist if not for its fundraisers and other donations.

“We really count on our fundraisers,” Wilshire said, noting that its annual golf tournament – one of its largest fundraisers – is among those that were lost last year due to the pandemic.

So that’s where fundraisers such as the Barbecue Benefit Bash come in.

A portion of the proceeds from the bash are already earmarked for the NCH’s transitional living program, which serves residents who have turned 21 and have therefore “aged out” of the general program.

Historically, today’s incarnation of the Nashua Children’s Home is rooted in a turn-of-the-20th-century gesture by prominent Nashua resident Josiah Fletcher, who donated property on the corner of Burrett and Brook streets, just south of Lake Street, to the First Baptist Church.

The property would be used “for the purpose of maintaining a home for orphans and destitute children of Nashua and vicinity,” according to Fletcher’s directive.

Four years later, in 1903, the “Nashua Protestant Orphanage Association” was founded by a group of people representing Nashua’s Protestant churches.

The orphanage moved to its present location at 125 Amherst St. in 1922, and evolved over the decades to include a girls’ residential program. In the early 1990s, the organization acquired 86 Concord St. for a girls’ residence, and its most recent addition came in 2002, when the independent living home opened at 119 Amherst St.

Duhamel, meanwhile, said his inspiration to undertake the often demanding, frequently exhausting process of putting together fundraisers is rooted in his deep sense of gratitude.

“My community has been so good to me … helped me out when I needed it,” he said, referring to people who stood by his side through some of the challenges life dealt him over the years, and how they pushed him over the occasional hurdle that popped up along the way.

Now, Duhamel said, “these kids need our help, big time … .”

Staring at one of the colorful, 11 by 17 inch posters he had printed up for the event, Duhamel broke a smile.

“Great food, great music, lots of fun, all for a great cause,” he said.

“Yep, this, to me, is going to be the best (fundraiser) ever.”

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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