By Contributor Donna Shor
Photo credit: Neshan H. Naltchayan
Dazzled guests at the Leukemia Society’s 25th Anniversary Ball entered through a glamorous corridor lined with silken
black and white mirror-studded hangings. It was flanked by twelve-foot
tall champagne glasses cleverly “built” of strings of lights to match
the stemmed glasses of bubbly each arrival was offered from silver
trays.
Upstairs,
in the ballroom of the Walter Washington Convention Center, beams of
pale blue and lavender bathed the tables in a misty light. Guests dined
on giant shrimp mounted on disks of lobster mousse, with a sea and shore
entrée. Dessert was caramel crunch-covered chocolate mousse.
Emcees
of the program of entertainment, awards and honors paid this largely
volunteer-powered effort were news personalities Cynne Simpson of ABC
7/WJLA TV, Lesli Foster of 9 News Now, NBC 4’s Eun Yang, Loo Katz of
97.1 Wash FM and WTTG Fox News Sue Palka.
Film
and TV comedian Sinbad kept the crowd laughing with his stories, and
the classic rock band Foreigner made the dancers happy. Above and beyond
the merriment, however, the guests knew why they were there: to help
fund a cure for blood cancer, to aid its victims in their brave and
painful battles, and to support their families.
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Sinbad
More
than one million two hundred people in the United States are living
with or in remission from a form of blood cancer such as leukemia,
Hodgkins lymphoma, NHL or myeloma. There is hope,because each year the
survival rate increases, yet it is sobering to know that someone is
diagnosed with blood cancer every four minutes. It causes more deaths among children and young adults under twenty than any other cancer.
Many in the audience were blood cancer survivors. It
was especially touching to hear the first person accounts of a half
dozen persons on stage who are now battling the disease--aged from six
years to sixty—as they told of their struggles and their hopes.
There
are fifty-nine Leukemia & Lymphoma Society chapters in the U.S. and
The National Capital Area Chapter is one of the most active. This
year’s two top local volunteer fundraisers, the LLS Man and Woman of the
year, Eric Allen and Becca Williams were honored.
The ball drew a crowd of 2,000 and is Washington’s largest one-night non-political black tie gala. Co-chairs
of the evening, which raised $3 million dollars, were Robin Lineberger
of Deloitte Federal Government Services and James H. Davis of Human
Genome Sciences, which places new therapies in the hands of those
fighting serious diseases. Human Genome Sciences was recognized with the
Titan of Business and Philanthropy Award.
The
James L.Eichberg Lifetime Achievement Award, named for the longtime
activist of worthy causes, was presented by Andrew Eichberg to
Kevin Fay, of Alcalde and Fay, for his long advocacy of increased
funding for leukemia research, as well as his fifteen-year LLS Ball
Committee membership and his personal efforts which have helped raise
more than $3 million dollars.
It
took three co-chairs to head the Auction Committee, and no wonder, they
and other volunteers amassed an amazing 792 valuable items, with
American Airlines as major donors. The Co-chairs were Karen Altschuler,
Michael Dearden and Kate Schofield. Guests could bid from
the dinner table thanks to BidPals, the hand-held wireless devices that
let them see photos of the items displayed in the foyer, follow the
amounts bidden, and be signaled if they were outbid.
Generous
local Mercedes dealers contributed big-time to the raffle. donating a
2012 ML350 SUV ($49,685) and a 2012 C250 Coupe ($38,115); Raffle
Committee Co-chairs were Carol Kerins and Steve Peck.
The
ball’s Public Relations Committee was chaired by Matt Forke of Vanguard
Communications, plus a team of six who helped get the news out.
A few interesting facts about Sinbad: he was ranked by Comedy Central as one of the
100 top standup comedians of all time. He was not only a basketball
standout for the University of Denver, he also amassed the creds to
serve as master of technology during private engagements for clients
such as Intel, Breakaway Technologies, Apple and Microsoft.
Who knew?