Bridge to S.U.C.C.E.S.S. fundraises for social services
SWEET SMELL OF: S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Foundation’s recent 40th annual Bridge to S.U.C.C.E.S.S. gala reportedly raised $650,000 to benefit programs and social services unaided by government funding. Walter Soo, Jeffrey Chan and Timothy Hsia chaired the Air Canada-sponsored event with 800 enjoying a banquet-concert at the Westin Bayshore Hotel. Lt.- Gov. Judith Guichon attended, as did the traditional crop of politicians. Foundation chair Brandon Hui and CEO Queenie Choo welcomed Premier John Horgan despite some gala-goers likely not favouring his government’s real-estate taxing strategies. Horgan’s plain business suit and blazing NDP orange tie contrasted the Trudeau-on-tour embroidered Chinese-silk jackets predecessor-but-one Gordon Campbell usually wore. Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie and Vancouver South MP-Minister of Defence Harjit Sajjan were there, of course. So was Vancouver park board commissioner John Coupar, who recently opposed a paved bike lane through Kitsilano Park and is mooted to be the Non-Partisan Association’s 2018 mayoral candidate. Meanwhile, the gala has raised more than $11 million since its inception.
GOOD FOR THEM: Recruits practised life-saving ladder techniques at Vancouver Fire Rescue’s Chess Street training facility recently. Steps away, 25 off-duty officers and eight PricewaterhouseCoopers volunteers packed eight tonnes of foodstuffs to help hungry, at-risk students survive spring break. Their efforts supplemented Vancouver Firefighters Charities’ Snacks For Kids program, also co-ordinated by leather-lungs Justin Mulcahy. He is assisted by Dotty Kanke who has long sparkplugged and supported firefighters’ charitable works. From the training operation’s produce-wholesaling neighbour, FreshPoint, VP Colleen Goto delivered a ton of apples and oranges to help fill 700 foodstuffs bags.
WISH LISTING: Avenue PR principal Tiffany Soper and Lazy Gourmet general manager Kevin Mazzone chaired the Children’s Wish Foundation’s fifth annual Night of Wonders gala. With a Bombardier Learjet 75 aircraft as backdrop, it was staged at the airport’s London Aviation Centre made more intimate by Countdown Events owner-designer Soha Lavin. The event reportedly raised $550,000, some $346,500 of which will send life-threatened youngsters and their families on global journeys the former wish for.
ARTIST MISSING: The Vancouver Art Gallery’s Bombhead exhibition entails 30 artists addressing nuclear-age “subject matter, strongly associated with obliteration and destruction.” Oddly, curators overlooked B.C.-based Carl Chaplin, a.k.a. Dr. Nuko, who painted nuclear detonations occurring over several global cities, including Vancouver. Among the works released as postcards, one — actually mailed from the then- Soviet Russian capital of Moscow in 1980 — shows the artist himself running from a blast behind the Kremlin’s Red Square neighbour, St. Basil’s Cathedral.
HAPPY NOWRUZ: Some Iranian expats will leap through bonfire flames March 20 to greet the following day’s Persian new year, Nowruz. Others anticipated it less dramatically at the Neekoo Philanthropic Society’s recent soiree in the Rosewood Hotel Georgia. The seventh-annual event should provide $3,000to-$5,000 scholarships for 40 young students. Celebrants admired a traditional Haft Sin new-year table set with, but not restricted to, seven symbolic items — coins, vinegar, bean sprouts, etc. — starting with the letter S in Farsi. A banquet of Persian dishes followed in the Spanish Ballroom.
SINGERS’ SUPPER: Fourth Avenue restaurateur John Bishop recently hosted another fundraising dinner for Vancouver Chamber Choir and soon-to-retire conductor Jon Washburn. Welsh-born Bishop has long nurtured singers. In 1993, he built a “pagoda” of french fries that operatic soprano Cecilia Bartoli consumed as quickly as British troops shamefully demolished the real one in 1860 at Beijing ’s Summer Palace.
MORE MOVIES: Fifteen years have passed since family councillor Sonia Andhi founded the Shakti Society and an annual awards gala recognizing women’s achievements in academics, the arts, athletics, business, public service and human resilience. Now she’s launched the Shakti Film Festival that should screen 10 to 15 productions on Oct. 14. “They’ll not necessarily be South Asian,” Andhi said, “and we welcome men who show women as real characters and avoid the stereotypes.” Attending the launch, L.A. Matheson Secondary female Grade 10 students are already making films focused on societal violence. Meanwhile, male Qa- sim Bajwa, 18, has shot much of The Light Between Us, a 40-minute drama addressing mental illness. Now seeking $6,000 to complete it, “I will do anything it takes to make it happen.”
ALL GROWN UP: Famous in India and presently visiting family here, Shivangi Bhayana has sung in 10 Bollywood films, including the theme song in the current blockbuster Padmaavat about 14th-century Rajput Queen Padmavati. At the Shakti event, the graduate of Burnaby’s Cariboo Hill Secondary (Michael Buble’s alma mater) linked up with impresario Kamal Sharma who staged her debut at age seven in a Michael J. Fox theatre concert.
PARIS EN BLANC: Adults-wishing to join 20,000 others at Paris’ Diner en Blanc event June 3 (call 778-558-8796) may share Mile’s End Motors principal David Bentil’s table for 50. They’d fly to spend a week at the Marriott Opera Ambassador hotel, where some might sign up for one of Bentil’s luxury and/or exotic cars.
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Let’s bet Mar-a-Lago no longer serves lamb skewers.