Happily, the young professionals who have transformed the Lower East Side into an “it” neighborhood packed with restaurants, bars, and luxury condominiums have also become supporters of the neighborhood’s historic institutions.

More than 600 people attended a tasting party Thursday night to raise funds for Grand Street Settlement, established in 1916 to provide social services to residents of the Lower East Side. The setting, the Angel Orensanz Foundation on Norfolk Street – a neo-Gothic building designed as a synagogue in 1849 – helped remind guests of the neighborhood’s rich Jewish past.

Guests, however, were all about helping the neighborhood today. Scattered throughout the room were about 90 volunteers in the Jump program, which plans once-a-month excursions for area youth to museums, amusement parks, baseball games, and the like. Alex Gardner and Julie Gardner-Koster founded Jump, which is an acronym for Juniors Undertaking Manhattan Pleasures, in 1992, building a strong base of young professionals eager to support the organization. The tasting event started five years ago, each year raising more money and packing more people into the Angel Orensanz Foundation. The volunteers – who include E. Swope Clarke, Amy Crowley, Matthew Grandis, and Gina Giaquinto – are effective ambassadors, recruiting dozens of their friends to buy tickets.

“I always thought the kids take it for granted. They don’t. At the end of the year they have an appreciation night, and they remember things!” Ms. Giaquinto said.

Exemplifying the strong relationships built by Grand Street’s volunteer programs, self-described former “Grand Street kids,” siblings Clara and Claribel Baez, hung out at the event with their former mentor, Maria Schoenherr.

“We’re almost peers,” Ms. Crowley said of her interaction with the Jump children.

While the event is a showcase for community service, it is also a showcase for the Lower East Side’s restaurants and bars.The 36 participating restaurants represented the broad spectrum of au courant New York tastes. Some nodded to the neighborhood’s past and present immigrants. Italian dishes included veal, pork, and beef meatballs stuffed with tomato gravy, from Apizz, and meat lasagna from Oroglio. Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans were represented by Veselka’s borscht, Tenement’s pierogies (modernized with caramelized onions and chive sour cream on the side), and Little Giant’s chicken liver mousse. Loreley Restaurant & Biergarten offered German fare: bratwurst and assorted German sausages. Cuisine of the area’s more recently arrived Mexican immigrants included pork tacos from aka Cafe and corn masa tarts topped with avocado salsa from Paladar.

Quintessentially American cuisine was also represented. Two of the most popular dishes were fried chicken with buttermilk biscuits from Clinton St. Baking Co. & Restaurant and Rice Krispies treats from Rice.

The food snobs found their satisfaction at WD-50’s booth, where Chef Wylie Dufresne offered up rainbow trout with pork belly, cider meringue, and miso paper.

If guests were still hungry, they could sample the sushi, served by Sachiko’s on Clinton, or the sour pickles from the Pickle Guys.

Me, I’m a sucker for chocolate, so my favorite dish was the chocolate flan spiced with chili peppers served by Chef Patrick Nuti of Petrosino, where tree branches arcing over the ceiling transport diners out of the gritty, urban scene just outside the doors.