Food for thought was trumped by food for action at Kingsborough Community College on Wednesday as a “plate of mac and cheese” roamed the hallways alongside “Mickey’s Mouseketeers” and the “Numerical Navigators” to raise money for cash-strapped students.
The zany crew was among more than 600 resourceful faculty, staff, students and supporters — many of them also in costume — who showed no signs of dampened spirits after rain forced them to take the benefit trek indoors.
“It was hard trying to walk inside the campus with a table!” chuckled Mille Burke, a secretary with the Marine and Academic Center’s Krafty Macs, who received rousing cheers for her comfort food cozzie — an eye-popping recreation of a plate of pasta with Burke’s head poking out of the top on a cardboard table covered by a checkered cloth and set with a posy of flowers.
“We go a little overboard!” added the fundraiser.
Harder still was making up the 2.5-mile schlepp indoors — the equivalent of traversing the exterior of the 70-acre, waterfront campus twice — but the highly-charged walkers took it in stride.
Other quirk-pots, also in a class of their own, included Continuing Education Dean Saul Katz, who led the “Seaside Pirates” decked out as a buccaneer, and legging-clad college President Regina Peruggi, who stopped sporadically to flex muscle with her “President’s Pacers.”
The cheery spectacle, which raised $20,000, put a brave face on fiscal blues at the Manhattan Beach learning institute.
“The economic downturn has affected Kingsborough students, and the funds raised will help with books, tuition, transportation and other necessities,” said spokeswoman Ruby Ryles.
Reach reporter Shavana Abruzzo at sabruzzo@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-2529.
