This year's annual Team Serra BBQ, held on Saturday, August 21st at Eisenhower Park, was a great success once again, with approximately 450 people attending throughout the day - nearly double the amount of students, family and friends at last year's barbecue. The party started at 1pm and rolled on until dark, for over seven hours of great fun, food, family and, of course, the trademark Team Serra spirit.

Adding to the event were a couple of surprise promotions; congrats to Chris Freda and Jareb Wulken, who both received their blue belts! It was a total surprise for the both of these guys as it's the first time we ever handed out belts at a BBQ!

To everyone who contributed in any way to making the BBQ such a huge hit… thank you so much for helping set up and clean up, for the drinks, the home-cooked meals (samosas, pasta salads, chicken parm, sausage and peppers and more!), the meats, the desserts (way too many to list, but all appreciated and devoured late into the night), the music, the games, and most of all, for sharing in the Team Serra spirit. We're proud to be surrounded by such great family and friends.

Special thanks to:

• Billy Ho, Bo, Mike, and Joanne for organizing and helping out throughout this year's BBQ
• Teddy Sheron for sharing his truck and loading it beyond capacity, before and after the event
• DJ Jimmy for coming down to provide the music
• Mike Horun and Joe Sagarese for flawlessly setting up, organizing and running the kids' games
• Abe for lending us the ping pong table and for dominating the beer pong games
• Ben Herman for running out and getting a ping pong net after the original one blew away on the highway
• Guillotine Ryan for bringing the volleyball net
• Billy Tats & Matt Borst for tirelessly manning the grills (these guys deserve a trophy)
• Mario, our own professional chef, for supplying the wonderful catered food
• Everyone else who was kind enough to make, bake, and bring food and drinks
• Thanks to VITA COCO for supplying us with the coconut water
• All of our loyal students who keep the team strong
• And of course, Matt and Nick Serra, for making this all possible.

Photos by Joanne Kountourakis & Danny Valle