The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, commonly known as the Al Smith Dinner, is an annual white tie dinner in New York City, United States, to raise funds for Catholic charities supporting children of various needs in the Archdiocese of New York. Held at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on the third Thursday of October, it is hosted by the Archbishop of New York while organized by the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation in honor of Al Smith who grew up in poverty and later became the Governor of New York four times and the first Catholic nominated as the Democratic candidate for the 1928 United States presidential election.