Friends of St. Nick honors Tim McDonough

The 34th annual Friends of St. Nick awards ceremony and luncheon went off without a hitch on Friday afternoon, garnering hundreds of residents, well-wishers, friends, family and donations.

The event was started back in 1992, according to President Bill Gurley, by a group of friends looking to do a little good around the holiday season. Since then, the group has grown, and the event has raised more than $500,000 for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

“I know many of you have been with us since day one, for all 34 years,” he said to the crowd. “Time flies. The Friends of St. Nick was started 34 years ago by a group of friends with classic Norwood names such as Thornton, Donohue, Lanzoni, Dempsey, and Curran; and the last two there now have second-generation board members helping us out.”

Gurley said the group was created to honor those doing good in Norwood and raise money for cancer research. Auctioneer, and son of St. Nick’s co-founder Chris Curran, Michael Curran said during his description of the auction items that all funds raised will go to cancer research.

“Everything will go directly to Dana-Farber,” he said.

For McDonough’s part, the Friends group stated that he was chosen because of his work with the Norwood Circle of Hope (COH), itself founded to raise money for those experiencing illness and cancers.

McDonough has served as the group’s president for 27 years and recently stepped down. He has served as one of the emcees of the COH’s Dancing with the Norwood Stars, as well as an organizer for the COH Luminary Night. During his 27 years, he helped the organization raise $1.5 million to help Norwood residents facing financial hardship due to illness. He has also served as President of the Norwood Scholarship Foundation and served in Town government on the Board of Selectmen, the School Committee, and the Board of Assessors.

He said he was a little turned around for this particular event.

“It was a little different for me to be on the other side,” McDonough said, alluding to his emcee duties for the COH Dancing with the Norwood Stars. “Usually I’m the presenter, but to be honored like that was just the thrill of a lifetime. To have 500 of my nearest and dearest friends there to congratulate me and thank me for my service, it was really overwhelming to be honest.”

McDonough said past awardee George Usevich nominated him for the award, as he has been facing his own health concerns that caused him to step down from the president position at the COH.

“They contacted me a couple of months back and said I had been selected this year, and it came as sort of a shock,” he said with a laugh. “But it’s also an overwhelming honor, and it was a tremendous day. It was the hottest ticket in Town to get and it was sold out. It’s just very humbling to be honored by your peers and the people of Norwood. They’ve always been good to me, and after a year of my own health concerns? It topped it off. Let’s put it that way.”

McDonough said he still hopes to return to the dance floor with Usevich to emcee the 2026 Dancing with the Norwood Stars at the Four Points in the spring.

“You know last year George had illness and I did it alone, but hopefully the team will be back this year raising more money and going forward, and George and I, we are still in charge of the scholarship foundation, so we’re going to keep our hands in it,” he said. “We’re not walking away from anything. We’re still going to keep doing good things for Norwood, that’s for sure.”

McDonough’s ceremony was a bit different than past years, in that he asked the organizers to perhaps portray him as less than a nice guy.

“They asked me, ‘Well how are we going to honor you?’” he said. “My niece told them my favorite movie was ‘A Wonderful Life,’ and they came to me and asked what I thought, but I said, ‘You know what? Instead of everybody praising me, why don’t you make me out to be an Ahole? Turn it upside down?’ And they did a spin on that that I thought was just hilarious. Because I don’t want people just up there saying ‘Oh he’s done this… he’s done that.’”

The video segment was part of a montage of friends and family congratulating McDonough and saying “Oh he’s done this, and he’s done that.” But the “expos?” video segment was about 15 minutes of a combination of a roast and programs like 60 Minutes or Inside Edition, where supposedly anonymous residents would relate fictional stories of McDonough not being so nice as everyone thinks he is. For instance, at one point one such interviewee said McDonough had a personal relationship with mobster Whitey Bulger, or that he stole merchandise from his first job at a corner store.

McDonough, as an emcee himself, said Curran and Gurley did an amazing job during the afternoon.

“They were all class acts, between Mike, Billy and Jeff, it was all great,” he said. “It was a good day of continuing what I like to do, which is help people through tough times.”

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But McDonough was not the only honoree during the afternoon. Norwood Fire Department Captain Joseph Mawn was awarded the Friends of St. Nick Kibby Good Guy Award for his work in the department and fundraising he has done for cancer research to Dana Farber through the Boston Marathon and the Pan Mass Challenge.

Friends Board Member Michelle Sweeney went over Mawn’s accolades, who said she grew up with Mawn and was there when he went through one of the most difficult times in his life.

“When we were just in middle school, I learned what a loss to cancer truly was,” she said. “His mom was the first person I ever knew who died as a result from cancer. Losing a parent at such young age can affect you in so many ways, but our Kibby Good Guy chose to honor his mother’s memory in such a good way. Joe Mawn has lived a life of service: he serves our country in the U.S. Army, he serves our Town as a captain in the Norwood Fire Department. But one of his most impressive acts of service is his personal mission to fight cancer. He has personally raised over $145,000 for Dana Farber.”

Mawn thanked Sweeney.

“I am truly overwhelmed by this,” Mawn said. “I truly don’t think I belong in the list of names you heard of the other recipients of this. I’m just happy to come support this event, let alone be recognized by it. The Friends of St. Nick, we’ve all seen the work you do, so thank you.”

Chris “Kibby” Curran was a founding member of the group but passed away in 2007. In 2009, the Friends decided to name an award and a door prize after him in his honor. Now, his son Michael Curran serves on the Board and as the auctioneer during the ceremony. He said he was very grateful that hundreds of friends and family get to remember his father here every year.

“There are a ton of people we lose each year, but we are fortunate to recognize my father every year,” he said. “We are truly so grateful. This is such an amazing Town.”

For more information on the Friends of St. Nick, go to https://friendsofstnick.org/