Fun and food with cause

Comedian Bill Bellamy hosts Cool Comedy-Hot Cuisine at Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas in The Linq Promenade on Thursday benefiting the Scleroderma Research Foundation with a lineup that includes TOP CHEF and Mandalay Bay star chefs Susan Feniger, Mary Sue Milliken, Rick Moonen and Hubert Keller.

The foundation was founded in San Francisco in 1987 by Sharon Monsky, one of Feniger’s best friends who contracted the disease and later died from it. Saville Kellner, SRF board member and event chairman, again leads this year’s event as a supporter and patient.

Diagnosed about five years ago — his first sign was a flare-up of his fingers that turned them blue, then red after playing soccer — Las Vegas resident Kellner said the goal of the event is twofold: to raise money to a find cure and to raise awareness so that more people know about scleroderma. Kellner said the fundraising goal for Cool ComedyHot Cuisine is $1 million.

“I am one of the lucky ones at this point in time. I went vegan and I started exercising after the diagnosis,” said Kellner, who also takes medications to treat scleroderma. “I’ve done well, and I’ve been pretty blessed. But I had it for two years, and I didn’t know it.”

The bi-annual Cool Comedy-Hot Cuisine — this is the second one in Las Vegas — raises awareness and funds for research and treatment of the debilitating disease. Scleroderma means “hard skin,” but the disease also affects internal organs with lethal consequences ...