Tam’s Tupelo Restaurant hosted a five-year anniversary dinner to benefit Keystone Village, a residential community for special needs adults. The dinner on Monday, Aug. 2, saw hundreds of familiar faces and donations.

Kelly Tam, co-owner of Tam’s Tupelo, said that each anniversary of the restaurant’s opening, she and her husband, Brian Tam, choose a local nonprofit to help. Tickets are sold for buffet dinners, and proceeds are donated to the nonprofit. This year, the Tams picked Keystone Village.

“We like to find nonprofits that not many people have heard about or [that] may be new,” Kelly Tam said. “And of course, they have to be local. We want to give back to the community that has been so kind and generous to us over the years.”

Tammy Miller and Beth Burns, co-founders of Keystone Village, said that while they are still a new nonprofit, they are hoping to purchase land soon to help make their dreams become a reality.

“Forsyth County doesn’t have anything like [Keystone Village],” Miller said. “And we want to be able to provide a wonderful home for adults with special needs in the community.”

Members of the community were able to sign up for two different dinner time slots, the first at 5 p.m. and the second at 6 p.m. Brian Tam said that community members had filled the ticket reservations for both times quickly to get some of Tam’s Tupelo’s famous NOLA cuisine and help a local cause.

“[The tickets] went fast,” Brian Tam said. “So, you could tell that people were excited to help out. That’s always nice to see.”