Stars serve dinner at Tony’s for charity
Vulnerable kids are real winners of sports-themed fundraising event
Scoring a table at Tony’s is a coup nearly any night of the week. But ESCAPE Family Resource Center supporters managed to lock down every single seat during Sunday’s annual Celebrity Serve Benefit. Power swans Lynn Wyatt and Becca Cason
Thrash upped the “Champions for Children” evening’s star wattage. Local stars Andy Cerota, Michael Chabala, Chris Daniel, Al Farb, Shara Fryer, Michael Garfield, Lanny Griffith, Steve Johnson, Ernie Manouse, Sharron Melton, Mat Musil, Dan Pastorini, Dan Patrick, Wade Phillips, Todd Ramos, Craig Roberts, Roseann Rogers, Bob Sakowitz, Edward Sanchez, John Schumacher, Cleverly Stone and Barry Warner rocked their best athletic duds to report for host duty. “If anybody wants a ring, raise your hand and I’ll send a referee over,” co-chair Gerald Franklin announced to a packed house. Raffle assistants, dressed in
referee dresses, sold flashing glow-in-thedark rings for $100. Participants became eligible to play “Heads or Tails;” one lucky winner claimed monthly floral and wine deliveries for a year from the River Oaks Plant House and Spec’s, respectively.
Lester Smith was the first to shoot his hand in the air.
“We’re the only organization that teaches parents how to parent and children not to put up with any abuse,” fellow co-chair Joan Schnitzer
Levy explained. “Unfortunately, most abuse happens to children under the age of 3. How heartbreaking is that?”
Dinnergoers responded by raising $272,670 in support of the organization that serves those most at risk for child abuse: low-income and young immigrant families, battered women and their children, children of divorced or divorcing parents, children with health or developmental disabilities, families confronting stress, substance abuse and generations of domestic abuse.
“Only Joan could get me here on the eve of my departure,” Stefanie
Powers, the evening’s special guest added. Powers, best known for her television work in “Hart to Hart” and “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.”), boarded a plane bound for East Africa the following morning to further conservation efforts.