Who is that mild-mannered, gray-haired, 60-plus-aged stud who sits steadfastly each week in the third row, front on the aisle. (On the right as you face the sanctuary? Did you ever try to get him to move into the middle of the pew? “Not if you like your face in its current configuration!” says his friend of long-standing, Bill McNulty.)

While you might think he is one of Cleveland Magazine’s 50 Most Interesting People for 1995 (he was!) that man is none other than CSM’s own Dave Starre. Dave has been around the Community for some 20 years at this point. And for about 18 of them now, he has coordinated the enormously successful Monday Night Meal (MNM) which faithfully feeds anywhere from 500-700 homeless and hungry persons while providing shelter and some warm fuzzies during the dinner hour week after week almost from the inception of CSM.

Jim and Mary Laubenthal, two of Dave’s most loyal colleagues, agree that it’s Dave’s great organizational skills that have contributed to the meal’s longevity. “Dave instituted weekly leadership changes to keep people involved,” opines Jim, “and he is singularly responsible for development of a community around delivering the meal. This is his ministry.” Every Monday night after the meal, many of the volunteers – and they are a legion – tromp off to some local watering hole and commune with each other. According to John Delzani, another MNM’er, Dave doesn’t like to be in the limelight (a surefire way to get oneself featured here!). John offers: “It’s hard to tell the Dave Starre story; he’s too covert. He’s down at the meal and it just happens!”

Those who know Dave and his lovely wife, Barbara, know that they have owned for many years some 35 acres of virgin land in Medina County. And if you know they own it, you also know that they have a Native American appreciation and worship of this beautiful land. While subdividing and selling it might have merited them many dollars, they made a joint decision not only to preserve its pristine purity – the only unnatural structures on the property are a 10-by-10 cabin and a teepee – but, more importantly, to share their bounty with as many others as possible. One such way has been the dozen years of the annual Malachi Mass in Medina. Because Dave and Barbara are such welcoming people each fall they have invited to their home away from home anyone who is available to come to the country for an outdoor liturgy and a potluck and a sing-a-long and some good fellowship.

Furthermore, twice each year in late winter and autumn Dave hosts the Wild Men of the Woods, a group of eight to 10 gents who come together for brotherly and spiritual support for 20 hours. A brainchild of McNulty’s, Bill believes that “in typical Starre fashion, sometimes there is more structure than others. We just kinda lie back and let the Spirit take over.”

Dave worked in the food brokerage business for more than 30 years until the end of ‘95 at which time he finally retired, as Barbara had cajoled him to do for several years. McNulty takes great pride in supplying the following tidbits about Dave: “Dave used to be an avid cross-country skier; now his bones are too old and brittle. So, in retirement from his rocking chair Dave will have to concentrate on his avocations of watching the stock market daily and capitalizing on the increase in leisure time to be the golf nut he truly is – he’s played every major course in the U.S.”

Dave is dedicated to his family and particularly loves his grandkids, especially the babies. On one hand Laubenthal is impressed with the great spiritual growth he’s seen in Dave over the years. McNulty, on the other hand, is quick to quip that “He can’t sing worth a damn, but his prayers go through the roof!”