Morgan House owners raise money for marathon bombing victims

LEE – A family that barely escaped tragedy at this year’s Boston Marathon is raising a substantial amount of money for victims of the attack.

James Loring was running in the marathon, along with his daughter and his college roommate, when he heard the bombs go off.

“We were approximately one-tenth of a mile from Boylston Street when we heard the explosions,” said Mr. Loring, in comments to The Beacon.

The Lorings, who own The Morgan House in Lee, wanted to do something to assist the victims of the marathon attack.

“I said to Jimmy, ‘You know, we own a restaurant, why don’t we have an old-fashioned fundraiser?’” said Mr. Loring’s wife, Pamela.

The Lorings decided to hold a spaghetti dinner fundraiser on April 21, the Sunday after the bombings, and charge $10 a plate.

“We didn’t know if we’d get 30, 50, 80 [people],” said Mr. Loring, noting aside from posting it on Facebook, they did very little to publicize the fundraiser, which was put together on short notice.

The community rose to the occasion, however, and the Loring’s served 141 spaghetti dinners, the entire proceeds from which will go to the victims.

Indeed, Mr. Loring had to make three trips to Price Chopper to get more pasta over the course of the evening. Price Chopper donated the first 10 pounds of this pasta to the fundraiser.

Combined with non-dinner-related donations, the Lorings have raised $2,000 and counting for the victims, and they’ve received donations from as far away as California and Georgia.

“We’re very happy with how it’s all worked out,” said Mr. Loring. “It’s just wonderful to see the people supporting the situation.”

“It’s what I love about living in a small town, and in The Berkshires,”
said Ms. Loring. “I love how people come together.”

Because of the scale of the response they’ve gotten, the Lorings will be taking donations until Monday (April 29). They will be sending all the money they raise to the Boston Firefighters Credit Union, who are giving 100 percent of what they receive to the victims.

 A close call

The Lorings further recalled their marathon experiences to The Beacon.

“I was trying to break four hours,” said Mr. Loring, who made it onto Boylston Street and was in the first group of runners ushered off the course. “Thank God I didn’t.”

“If they had kept their original pace, they would have been right there when the bombs went off,” said Pamela Loring, who was even closer than her husband when the explosions occurred.

Ms. Loring, her son, Drew, and her daughter’s boyfriend were trying to make it to the finish line, and were only a block away, when the bombs exploded.

“We helped move barricades back to let the fire trucks through,” said Ms. Loring, whose son ran out onto Boylston Street to look for his sister and father, whom he knew were nearby.

Drew has recorded his memories of the day on his Tumblr account, online at drewloring.tumblr.com.

It took an hour and a half, but eventually, both groups were reunited.

Mr. Loring is also a retired Lee Police Officer, and the friend whom he was running with, Don Kennesick, is a detective lieutenant in the Massachusetts State Police. Mr. Kennesick and his unit were called in to help locate the bombing’s perpetrators and were involved in the shooting incident where bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed.

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on April 25, 2013. Filed under Community News,Featured,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry