Honoring mom’s memory — and raise money for Meals on Wheels

By Adam Worcester / Special to The Herald

EVERETT — When Tad Richardson talks about his late mother, the topic inevitably turns to food.

Patti Clawson, a 1963 graduate of Cascade High School, loved to cook. And she would share her cuisine with just about anyone willing to eat it.

“Feeding people is a love language,” Richardson said. “My mother fed everybody.”

There were huge Saturday breakfasts, hearty family dinners, annual Christmas fudge and fruitcake for friends and relatives.

During Tad’s junior year at Washington State University, Patti arrived one weekend with a grocery sack full of goodies for Tad and his roommates.

In 2008, she wanted to thank all the friends and family members who visited her the day before she had brain surgery for the cancer that would prevail a year later. So she made 20 pounds of lasagna.

Richardson recalled how his mom loved serving people, especially the elderly. She spent much of her free time shuttling older friends to various appointments.

So when Richardson wanted to start an annual fundraiser in Patti’s honor, Meals on Wheels immediately sprang to mind.

“Their mission is to feed bodies and nourish souls. I thought, ‘That’s exactly what Mom did,’” he said.

It’s what Tad and his older brother, Brad, have been doing each St. Patrick’s Day since 2007: hosting an annual dinner for up to 200 friends. Brad cooks homemade fish and chips and clam chowder.

In 2012, Richardson turned the gathering into a fundraiser to memorialize Patti.

“We had the party, and we asked people to drop money in a bucket,” Richardson said.

The “St. Patti’s Day Bash” was off and running.

Richardson lived in Spokane at the time, so the first few bashes benefitted Spokane Meals on Wheels. In 2015, a job led him back to the Puget Sound area. Soon thereafter he approached Homage Senior Services, which runs Meals on Wheels for Snohomish County.

“He came in and said he wanted to do something special for his mother,” said Kit Massengale, Homage’s director of philanthropy. “We’ve developed a real nice partnership.”

This year the St. Patti’s Day Bash raised more than $5,500 for Meals on Wheels. It has been held at the Everett Yacht Club the past three years, and added a silent auction of locally made products.

Richardson estimates the bashes have raised about $34,000 over the past eight years for the Spokane and Snohomish Meals on Wheels programs. Next year, he has even bigger plans.

In Spokane, he partnered with a local restaurant in 2018 to create “Waffles 4 Wheels.” For a week-long period, the restaurant agreed to donate $1 to Meals on Wheels for any customer who ordered one of its famous pumpkin waffles.

This year he expanded the program to more than 20 restaurants, which donated gift cards or the profits of selected menu items.

Now Richardson aims to bring it to Snohomish County.

“Tad is really creative and very community-oriented,” Massingale said. “It’s a great concept. I’m all for it.”

Richardson hopes to sign up more than 40 Snohomish County restaurants for the inaugural event next March. And he’s working on plans to make the Waffles 4 Wheels program replicable anywhere in the country.

The new project won’t end the St. Patti’s Day bashes, however.

Because, at heart, the feasts epitomize the spirit of Patti.

“We want to feed our friends, and have fun with our friends,” Richardson said, “like our mother taught us to do.”