The Issaquah Press
COMMUNITY
Section
B
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011
Issaquah family bids bittersweet goodbye after decade in business By Warren Kagarise Issaquah Press reporter
CONTRIBUTED
Kayla Morrill talks with Mary Cook, first counselor in the General Relief Society Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at Issaquah’s alternative prom.
Alternative proms gain a following By Sarah Gerdes Sixteen-year-old North Bend junior Kayla Morrill wanted to go to prom this year, yet she faced a crisis. “A lot of my friends couldn’t go to the high school prom, so we went to a different one,” she said. In today’s language, a different prom is what has become known as an alternative prom, commonly called a modest prom. Such proms are events that cater to teens who opt out of their school dance for a variety of reasons. “A regular prom would have been way too expensive,” Morrill explained. Another benefit? “None of that dirty-dancing stuff,” she said. Morrill is not alone. Thousands of other teens from all walks of life have been seeking what has become known as alternative proms, dances where the dress standards and music are more akin to a 1950’s atmosphere than the Snooki-improvised club. For the past four years, the Issaquah Community Center has hosted the region’s largest modest prom open to all teenagers on the Eastside. It regularly draws several hundred teens and is chaperoned by parents in the community. The sponsor this year was the Bellevue North Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. “There are a lot of good youth who desire modesty, clean language, good music, and to have fun,” said Bellevue North Stake President Stephen W. Yose said. “This event provides that environment.”
“There are a lot of good youth who desire modesty, clean language, good music, and to have fun. This event provides that environment.” — Stephen W. Yose Bellevue North Stake President
It starts with the dress For Morrill, the environment was a huge part of determining whether to attend a prom at all. The second consideration was her dress. “Purchasing a dress can easily run $300 to $400,” explained Chris Hash, founder and CEO of www.modestprom.com, the largest provider of modest prom dresses in the United States. “That’s before alterations and without any of the accessories.” Hash said she can identify with Morrill’s concerns about a dress, noting that young women like Morrill make up a large percentage of her customers, but not all. “Bigger girls don’t want their upper arms showing or the middle of their tummy,” she explained, relating how she recently modified a dress for a 16year-old girl who is a size 24. Likewise, well-endowed teenagers who might be thin elsewhere don’t want boys leering down their dresses the entire night. Covering up skin issues can also be a reason for a girl to get a modest prom dress. “We have young women who come in during the middle of puberty and might have back acne, See PROM, Page B3
oodfellas Sandwich Shop, a decade-old gathering spot for Issaquah High School sports teams and office workers on lunch breaks, closed June 24 after owners Steve and Melinda Sanelli stacked the last sandwiches. Steve Sanelli, a longtime South Cove resident and Issaquah High assistant baseball coach, said business was good, but the impending closure stems from a disagreement between the eatery and the building owner. “It would be one thing if I was failing in business and we had to close,” he said. “This is something that’s not my choice.” For Sanelli and other family members, the closure is about more than the bottom line. “When you’re in business this long, it kind of becomes who you are,” Melinda Sanelli said. “In a way, you feel like you’re being stripped of your personality and how everyone sees you and what you stand for.” The closure announcement came as a surprise to employees and customers. Steve Sanelli said the building owner asked in March for the sandwich shop to vacate the space. The family plans to spend the next week packing and selling equipment. “We have a lot of people who come in, that eat here, that are saddened by the whole idea that we’re closing,” Steve Sanelli said.
G
Go out with a bada bing The husband-and-wife team opened Goodfellas in Eastgate in October 2001, and built a customer base for sandwiches and housemade meatballs and Italian sausage. The menu items’ names nod to “The Sopranos” and mobster films. Throughout the past decade, almost every Sanelli family member worked at the eatery and so, too, did spouses and significant others. Steve Sanelli’s mother makes the meatballs served at Goodfellas. (Steve and Melinda Sanelli’s children all graduated from Issaquah High.) “A lot of kids, I don’t think, would really want to work with their parents and live with their parents, to be with them 24/7,” daughter Sicily Sanelli said. “But to be honest, it really brought all of us a lot closer together.” Daughter Angelina Edwins, a Snoqualmie resident, recalled
Food bank offers free summer snacks By Laura Geggel Issaquah Press reporter For some, summer means hunger. During the school year, the federally funded National School Lunch Program keeps students fed during the breakfast and lunch hours, offering free or reduced-price meals to children in need. Once school gets out for the summer, those meals disappear. Thanks to the Issaquah Food & Clothing Bank and volunteers from Eastridge Church, families can get free, healthy snacks for their children every Tuesday throughout the summer, until Aug. 16. “These families have to make choices between buying meals or paying for bills,” Lindsay Ztyree, an AmeriCorps worker with Eastridge Church, said. Families must live in one of the following ZIP codes to participate: 98027, 98029, 98075 or 98059, and have proof of address and identification. Each family can collect one free, grocery-sized snack bag per child. Volunteers have filled them with tasty treats, such as peanut butter, applesauce, Capri Sun juices, milk, bagels, granola bars and pudding packs. Asa Taylor’s family picked up a snack bag at the inaugural day of the Summer Lunch Program,
CONTRIBUTED
Jessica Crites (back row, from left), Mario Sanelli, Julie Donate, Stephen Sanelli, Sicily Sanelli, Nolan Graham, Angelina Edwins and Tyler Edwins join Melinda Sanelli (front row, from left) Brody Edwins and Steve Sanelli for a last lunch at Goodfellas Sandwich Shop on June 21.
“It’s just time for them to move on to the next chapter in their life, but boy, I’m sure going to miss this chapter.” — Jessica Crites Goodfellas Sandwich Shop employee
bringing son Brody to play in the back room during stints at the shop. “What I’m going to miss most is being able to go drop in, have lunch and see people,” she said. “There are so many different friends and family that come in any time of day, any day of the week. You can just be sitting there eating lunch and see someone you haven’t seen in a year or two. Or, one of our good friends might walk in and you can have lunch with them. Just to be able to catch up and see people that you don’t normally see is such a great thing to have.” Jessica Crites, Melinda Sanelli’s younger sister and a longtime em-
“We’re all proud of him and my mom, and are sorry that it had to end this way. They ran a great company for the past 10 years. They’re going to do great things, I know that.” — Sicily Sanelli Steve and Melinda Sanelli’s daughter
ployee at the store, said the upcoming closure is bittersweet. “It’s just time for them to move on to the next chapter in their life, but boy, I’m sure going to miss this chapter,” she said. Crites mentioned another loss: Goodfellas’ menu. “Their food is just outstanding, I’m telling you, even if I wasn’t family,” she added. “There’s nowhere around that serves the kind of sandwiches that they serve.” Crites and Melinda Sanelli started working in a family business early, at the former Puget
Sound Baking Co. in Issaquah. “I hate to see the fact that family business is falling to the side of the road,” Melinda Sanelli said. Steve Sanelli used to operate Sanelli’s Deli in Factoria and, after the eatery closed years ago, he intended to open another sandwich shop. “Between this sandwich shop and me coaching, that’s been my life,” he said. “That’s what it’s been all about.” Many customers called for the Sanellis to reopen elsewhere, but the start-up costs to open another eatery stand as a steep barrier. “We don’t have $150,000 to go out and gut a building and start all over again,” Steve Sanelli said. In the meantime, he is coaching a Lakeside Recovery baseball team and Melinda Sanelli plans to continue another job at PCC Natural Market. “We’re all proud of him and my mom, and are sorry that it had to end this way,” Sicily Sanelli said. “They ran a great company for the See GOODBYE, Page B3
Fireworks, parade await Issaquah By Laura Geggel and Chris Huber Issaquah Press reporters
BY GREG FARRAR
Above, the Summer Lunch Program attracts clients and their children June 21 to the Issaquah Food & Clothing Bank, which provided grocery bags of healthy children’s snacks (right) with help from volunteers from Eastridge Church to help with bagging and distribution. Activities are also provided for young people, and the bags will sometimes include fitness toys inside. June 21. The 10-year-old also tossed a football back and forth with volunteers in the park across from the food bank. “So far, it’s fun because I’m playing football,” he said. One woman who received a snack bag said she would return the next week to help translate for Spanish-speaking participants, Ztyree said. “She’s like, ‘I’m being helped, so I want to help,’” Ztyree said. The idea for the Summer Lunch Program took root after Steve Jamison, lead pastor at Eastridge
Church, and his colleagues asked the food bank staff if they could help in any way. “They had an idea, but they needed people, and we had people,” Ztyree said. The bank had enough food to make bags of healthy summer snacks for children and teenagers, but it didn’t have the manpower to organize a distribution station complete with fun activities, such as sidewalk chalk See SNACKS, Page B3
On Independence Day, Issaquah residents can head downtown for the annual parade, churn butter at the Train Depot Museum, participate in a slug race or drive to Sammamish for the annual plateau celebration. The annual Down Home Fourth of July begins with the Kids, Pets N’ Pride Parade at 11 a.m. at Rainier Boulevard North, at the intersection of Northwest Dogwood Street and Front Street North. The parade is free, but participants must fill out a form before they begin marching. Paradegoers can find the form online, or in The Issaquah Press. Registrants also can sign up the day of the event at 10 a.m. July 4 at 425 Rainier Blvd. N. After the parade, families can plays games at Veterans Memorial Field and learn about Issaquah’s history from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Issaquah Train Depot Museum’s Heritage Day celebration, 50 Rainier Boulevard N. On Veterans Memorial Field, See FOURTH
OF JULY, Page B3