Mayors’ Dinner
The Mayors’ Dinner is a yearly community fundraising event that has successfully raised money for the projects of The Working Centre and St. John’s Kitchen.
The Mayors’ Dinner is a lively, ever changing fundraising dinner that supports the projects of The Working Centre and St. John’s Kitchen.
This year’s 36th Mayors’ Dinner will be held on Saturday April 5, 2025 at Bingemans. For more information and to get tickets, visit our ticket platform. Email us at [email protected] if you would like to contribute to the Mayors’ Dinner auction.
The Mayors’ Dinner was initiated by Kitchener Mayor Dominic Cardillo in February 1988. Over these 36 years, the Mayor of Kitchener was eventually joined by Lynne Woolstencroft, Mayor of Waterloo and then Doug Craig joined as Mayor of Cambridge. Each have helped to create an event that is primarily about building community. Each year we told stories of people who have spent their lifetime weaving community into the core of their lifework whether in business, philanthropy, social service, sports, social justice or volunteerism.
The Mayors’ Dinner draws our citizens together and publicly recognizes and celebrates community commitment. We like to think that people leave each event feeling more committed to community. For years, the outstanding guests brought respected energy to the event. People loved coming back to The Mayors’ Dinner because it reinforced a community ritual of teaching the best of community service.
Each new guest of honour added a story, a new dimension of diversity to the list. Past guests of honour participated in choosing the next guest, looking for unique, authentic guests who genuinely made outstanding contributions to community. We now have an excellent archive of stories about the long succession of Mayors’ Dinner Guests of Honour. See this list of past Mayors’ Dinner Guests of Honour and Themes.
Our Mayors’ have added to the tradition from Dominic Cardillo, Carl Zehr, Lynne Woolstencroft, Herb Epp, Brenda Halloran, Berry Vrbanovic, Dave Jaworsky, Doug Craig, Dorothy McCabe, Jan Liggett.
Hosted by the Mayors of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, this event is held in early April each year and draws together 800 to 1,000 people.
As a fundraising event we have celebrated that between 800 and 1000 people have participated in the event each year. We have had long time patron supporters, some like Hallman Construction, Bingemans, MBHC Planning, Erb and Good Funeral Home and Strassburger Windows who have participated in every dinner.
For the past five years The Mayors’ Dinner has focused on social issues and community building, continuing to highlight the examples of people who have given of themselves and strengthened the fabric of our community. Themes such as Homelessness, Determined Hope, St. John’s Kitchen, Climate Change, Knowing our Neigbours are important themes as our communities change in the these years since 2020.
On the 25th anniversary we invited and gathered together almost all the families of the 25 Guests of Honour. At the special reception we thanked each family and gathered for a group picture, symbolizing not only the cultivation of friendships but how the good spirit of this group has intertwined with the development of The Working Centre.
