FLOWER POWER: DAFFODIL BALL RAISES $1.5M
21 performers support Motown Meltdown! to benefit eyesight projects abroad
FULL BLOOM: The Canadian Cancer Society’s 22nd annual Daffodil Ball reportedly raised $1.54 million in the Hotel Vancouver’s Pacific Ballroom recently. It will support programs to aid post-cancer patients with physical, emotional and psychological difficulties.
You could say that the ball ran like a Swiss watch or Tesla car (a visit to the firm’s California factory was auctioned off ), but, as with all such endeavours, a year of committee meetings, auction-item soliciting and ticket-selling was involved. The event was chaired for the fourth time by resource-sector securities lawyer Jennifer Traub and debuting co-chair Megan Lammam, a stay-at-home mom and wife of Cressey Development Group VP Hani Lammam. Between them, they likely sold 200 tickets at $550 to $1,000 each. “Everybody wants the VIP tables,” Traub said. So why not designate more of them? “Then they wouldn’t be for VIPs,” she said ruefully.
SEEING THEIR WAY CLEAR: As a change from singing Canadian and U.S. national anthems at Whitecaps and Canucks games, Marie Hui belted out Rufus and Chaka Khan’s 1974 soul-funk hit, Tell Me Something Good. That was at the Commodore Ballroom’s Motown Meltdown! concert where 21 volunteer performers — from Karen Lee Batten to Garfield Wilson — raised funds for Seva Canada’s eyesight-restoring projects in low-income countries. Eleventh on the bill, 15-year event producer Kendra Sprinkling sang the Isley Brothers’ It’s Your Thing. She also teamed with fellow solo-singers Linda Kidder and Jane Mortifee on several Motown classics, driven along by David Sinclair and The Scorchers powerhouse octet.
VERY CHERRY: Surrounded by flowering cherry and magnolia trees, Stanley Park Pavilion hosted the fourth annual Sakura Night gala to raise a reported $30,000 for Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival.
Founder Linda Poole welcomed seven chefs and their serving-station teams. Among them, Masayoshi restaurant owner Masayoshi Baba served steamed sakura domyoji (rice cake wrapped in pickled cherryblossom leaf ) alongside albacore tuna with zucchini and onsen quail egg.
O SOLE RIO: Corinne Lea (corinne@riotheatre.ca) reports that the #Savetherio crowdfunding campaign to prevent the Broadway-off-Commercial Rio Theatre’s destruction and redevelopment has topped $500,000. A million-dollar down-payment deadline is May 7. Meanwhile, a 10th-anniversary party for the current operation should be a humdinger May 1.
HELPING OUT: More than grunts and bumps emanated from Maureen Wilson’s 34-year-old Sweat Co. gym when she staged a lip-sync contest to benefit Out in Schools.
That’s the film-video-and-discussion program for students facing homophobia, transphobia and bullying. Drag entertainer Carlotta Gurl (Carl McDonald) fronted the show, and musicians like Patrick Steward (Odds, Bryan Adams, Colin James, etc.) added to the happy racket.
GREASE-FREE: The fourth annual Greasy Spoon dinner benefited the Better Life Foundation with two sold-out sittings at Save On Meats. Royal Dinette executive chef Eva Chin, sommelier Claire Saksun and Savio Volpe sous-chef Melanie Witt served a Hawaiian-themed dinner including laulau pork, mochi rice and coconut shrub. Old hat for Chin who was raised on her grandparents’ 243-hectare Aiano Farm in North Oahu where her imu (underground oven) meals cooked while she surfed. Saksun backed the dish with Biodynamic Riesling from Fruitvale’s SOAHC winery. A Maui Blanc from that other island’s Tedeschi winery might have done the trick, too, especially for men wearing the BOSS firm’s shoes made from pineapple-leaf fibre.
GIVING HOPE: With the Modernism in Iran exhibition continuing at Brigitte and Henning Freybe’s Griffin Art Projects gallery, expat Iranians gathered to help disadvantaged young women back in their birth country. Zohreh Waibel and Mana Jalalian hosted a reception for the international Omid Foundation that helps such women “experience a full range of life options through self-empowerment, education and training.”
Endowed with all three, attending graphic designer Sahar Hosseini said she has run two full and 15 half marathons, and will donate to Omid (a male name meaning “hope”) the $2,000 she should raise at the BMO event here May 6.
WELL DONE: Vancouver Art Gallery senior curator Ian Thom will retire after three decades of mounting 100 or so exhibitions and writing 13 books. His seventh was Art B.C.: Masterworks from British Columbia. VAG supporter-collector and subsequently private gallerist Michael Audain, who suggested the book and provided seed funding, said at its launch: “We have outstanding artists (who) take second place to none in the world. Those who say otherwise, this book puts the lie to them.”
START THE PRESSES: Editing a hefty community newspaper can be challenging even when you’re in the office. More so if you are 11,000 km away. Indo-Canadian Voice editor and former Vancouver Sun reporter Rattan Mall was juggling 80 or so pages remotely from India when someone stole his important mobile phone. The paper still came out on time, though.
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: World Press Freedom Day and Lumpy Rug Day will both fall on May 3, and International Tuba Day May 4.