When Dolores DiMeo Carroll bumped into Bob Susi outside the former Rite Aid on Atwood Avenue in 2007, she never expected to organize a reunion of the 30 students who were in her kindergarten class at the former Knightsville Elementary School on Greene Avenue.

He asked her if she ever ran into certain classmates.

“I said, ‘Someday I am going to get us together,’” she recalls. “He said, ‘How are you going to do that?’ I said, ‘Watch me.’ With help, it became a reality.”

In 2008, she held her first reunion of the kindergarten class. She continued every year until COVID-19 forced a pause last year.

In 2021, without skipping a beat, DiMeo Carroll held the reunion on July 15, to coincide with the St. Mary’s Feast.

“We all grew up in Knightsville. It’s a part of us, it is who we are,” she said.

Of the 30 students, eight have passed away, two since the last reunion in 2019. Eighteen came to the dinner at Cucina Rustica, with Raymond Saccoccio winning the prize for coming the farthest – from Florida – and attending the reunion for the first time.

“We have all been friends since we were 5 years old. All our families knew each other. It was a different way of life back then,” DiMeo Carroll said.

The class dedicated the evening to their favorite teacher, Mrs. Judge.

Classmates who were unable to attend include Edward Graziano, Beverly Improta DeLuca, Bette Soscia Harrison and Beatrice Pezza Flynn.