Roses to organizers Nerys Levy and Mildred “Ma Dip” Council and the legions of volunteers who have made the annual Community Dinner such a success over the past 15 years.

This year’s dinner, on April 15, was held, like all the previous ones, at McDougle Schools. More than 650 people attended, for a Sunday of live entertainment by a host of local performers and dinner provided by Mama Dip’s Kitchen, the Carolina Inn, Margaret’s Cantina, the Chapel Hill Restaurant Group, Mediterranean Deli, the Chapel Hill Kehillah and Hadassah.

Volunteer servers dished up the eats. The Community Dinner is intended to celebrate the diversity that makes this such a vibrant place to live, and it does just that. Breaking bread with others is one of the purest ways of bringing people together. At the Community Dinner, you may sit down next to someone you’ve never met before, but when you get back up you’ll have made a friend.

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Roses to local Boy Scout Troop 39 for once again organizing and hosting its popular “Touch a Truck” event last week at University Mall.

This marked the fourth year of the event, and an estimated 2,500 moms, dads, grandparents and kids of all ages came out to climb on, touch and learn about fire trucks, cement mixers, cranes, race cars and more.

UNC’s Carolina Air Care and Duke’s Life Flight helicopters made dramatic entrances by circling the mall and landing in the parking lot. The crews then spent several hours showing off their equipment and giving event-goers the inside scoop about what they do.

A third helicopter, a 1964 C-model Huey, was also on hand, thanks to the Vietnam Veterans Pilots’ Association. The Durham Bulls mascot, Wool E. Bull, joined the mascots from all three local high schools and mingled with the crowd, shaking hands and giving out hugs on a picture perfect day.

“Touch a Truck” proceeds benefit the Promise Grant Program of UNC’s Children’s Hospital and the scouts – a true community event.

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Roses to the students, teachers and parents of Mary Scroggs Elementary School for their amazing organic garden, which was featured on the 2012 Chapel Hill Spring Garden Tour.

This is the first school garden ever selected to be on the Chapel Hill Garden Club’s biannual garden tour, and for good reason. Every class has a vegetable plot that the students plant and take care of, and there is also a native wildlife garden area, butterfly garden, polliwog pond, afterschool garden area, and a special garden where the students grow herbs for a local restaurant, which then donates back to the school.

During the Garden Tour, the students guided delighted visitors around their garden and their class science displays. Anyone who gardens knows how much work goes into it. Considering how little extra time teachers, students and parents have, everyone involved in this extraordinary learning project at Scroggs deserves a bouquet of flowers.

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Roses to Eno Publishers in Hillsbrough, whose book “27 Views of Chapel Hill: A Southern University Town in Prose & Poetry” has been named a finalist in the ForeWord Reviews 2011 Book of the Year Awards.

The book is a portrait of our fair city in the form of essays, poems and short fiction by many of this area’s best writers, including Elizabeth Spencer, Daphne Athas, Alan Shapiro and Daniel Wallace.

ForeWord, the only publishing trade journal devoted exclusively to books from independent publishing houses, has named “27 Views of Chapel Hill” a finalist in the Anthology category.