Are the very same people who are great sometimes! And if you have any doubts, read on.

The Boys and Girls Club of MetroWest’s Annual Gala is a key fundraising event for the organization, and year after year, it has garnered a great range of contributions from the community. The combination of raffles and silent auction items, awards, presentations and speeches, good food and plenty of cheer, is a no-fail mix. Last year, for example, the event raised $128,000.  And then the pandemic hit.

But the Boys and Girls Clubs of MetroWest know how to handle obstacles. This year, their Gala was virtual. And the funds raised (including before, during and after the event) reached $137,000. So there, COVID.

We at Inside Out Communications, Inc., are particularly excited because our VP of Client Services, Maria Stearns, is a member of the Board of Directors for the Boys and Girls Clubs of MetroWest, and sits on their resource development subcommittee as well. Here’s a shout out!

At the Inside Out Communications 30th anniversary party, of course.
We had an amazing combination of clients, very old and very new; team members, also, some very old and others, very recent; friends, all of them tried and true, and cool neighbors from our building.

Of course, Matt created the ideal combination of classy and funky invitations; Greg Hayes found us a perfect band; Becky put together tray after tray of greens and yummies; Kelly organized and pretty-fied left and right; Larry cooked some delicious Del Terruño beef and Maria made her famous Chimichurri – which disappeared in a matter of minutes. And what did I do? Mostly, I cried, and hugged. Oh well. Thank God for Maybelline. How could I not tear up when I saw our much loved art director Brian Latham, who came all the way from Houston, Texas, to help us celebrate? Or when Bill Goodchild and his wife walked in? They were clients from 28 years ago, and our first industrial clients, too. And Pauline Dzengelewski was here, even though she had badly injured a foot, and climbing to the fourth floor was no fun for her. She is now with Dedham Savings but 28 years ago, she was our client at West Newton Savings Bank. Tyrone Pinkham did sales for us in another life, way before E.R.; Steve Sellew was a client a good 20 years ago and he was here, and so was Joe Bartlett, who believed in us and hired us to help launch HarvardNet, one of our most exciting and glamorous accounts ever.

Once in a while, you have a client who reminds you why advertising is so exciting; why you feel that your job allows you to touch a company in ways you never thought were part of your job; why you finally feel that your job has redeeming values.

For us at Inside Out, David Reece was that client. He just died, and the sorrow in our hearts goes deep. We’ve lost a friend, a fan, a teacher. David trusted us; he allowed us to do things that were the craziest we have ever done for a client – and that worked really well. He believed in us; when we presented creative to him, he knew that we had done our homework; we weren’t just being funky, we were strategic. He challenged us – he made us go beyond and above the traditional confines of advertising, and relied on us to support not just his ambitious sales efforts, but his outside-the-box management initiatives. We will miss him, we pray for his eternal rest, and we’re grateful for the opportunities he gave us, and the fun we had with him.

These past couple of weeks we’ve had to do some serious scrambling at Inside Out; everyone came through. There were several urgent, unscheduled deliveries to restaurants that wanted beef from our client, Del Terruño, and market research to support what we think will be a great new business initiative for the agency, if we act fast. Feels good to work with people who roll up their sleeves and get it done. Yup. It’s going to be a happy new year!