At breast cancer fundraiser Sunday, catch music by The Goombas, a.k.a. Mancini’s and Cossetta owners and friends – Twin Cities

A breast cancer fundraising event on Sunday, Oct. 13, is set to feature performances by some familiar West Seventh neighborhood names — ones you might not recognize for their music.

The event, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Mancini’s Char House, will feature live music from bands including The Goombas, Tony Garry, the Ken Mahler Trio and the Vallee de Croix Choir. Food will be catered by Cossetta, and there’ll also be prize giveaways and a Halloween costume contest.

Members of The Goombas include Pat Mancini, owner of Mancini’s Char House; Dave Cossetta, owner of the eponymous Italian market and restaurant; Ken Mahler, who owns the instrument store Mahler Music Center; their elementary school friends Soby Meza, Dan Vruno and Mike Brennen; and several other local musicians.

The event is a fundraiser for Alisha Bauer, a niece of Mahler’s, who was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. Bauer, a single mother, has worked in health care for decades in local hospitals and care centers, primarily as a nursing assistant for aging patients, she said.

“It’s absolutely different being on the opposite end, and it’s hard to think that I’m going to need to ask for help,” she said. “Being in that opposite position is a little foreign to me. But it’s great to know I have that support circle.”

Bauer’s father, Rick Svoboda, will join The Goombas on drums at the event. When Bauer was growing up, Svoboda frequently played with bands onstage at Mancini’s, she said, but he stopped performing in the early 2000s, and Bauer’s two kids have never seen their grandfather play live, she said.

“We did a little rehearsal over at Cossetta’s house, in his garage,” Mancini said, “and it was fun to see Rick literally pick the sticks back up and hammer away at some Elvis tune we were rehearsing.”

In some form or another, Mancini, Cossetta, Mahler and their friends have been playing music together since the late 1970s. The Goombas formed more recently, Mancini said, largely to honor the role that music has played in helping group members weather health scares and tragedies including Mancini’s own diagnosis with stage 3 colon cancer about 15 years ago.

“Music is really our bonding factor,” he said. “We’ve all been healed by music. We’ve all used music to help get us through the tough times.”

Everyone should get checked for breast cancer, Bauer said. Not just women can get the disease, and her case was detected during the first mammogram she’d ever had.

“The whole cancer journey has been overwhelming, and I didn’t choose to get breast cancer but I can choose how I face it,” she said. “Yes, this benefit is for me, so to speak, but it’s to raise awareness as well.”

If You Go

What: A breast cancer benefit fundraiser event with music, food from Cossetta’s, a Halloween costume contest and prize giveaways

When: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 13

Where: Mancini’s Char House; 531 W. Seventh St.

Tickets: $30 at the door

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