Hope Ball is bucking to be the best gala auction event of the social calendar.
Hope Ball an angelic occasion for participants and benefactors alike
Over the last couple of campaigns, the 20th Century Club’s Hope Ball has morphed a little, from a debutante’s ball for high school juniors to a supercharged auction and a gobsmacking short documentary pitch for a pledge drive.
On March 7 inside the Wally Allen Ballroom, another 25 “Angels” were introduced, accompanied by their fathers or male supporters, before a crowd of 700-800. These juniors have logged dozens of volunteer hours at the 20th Century Club Lodge, a facility that provides no-cost, temporary housing to cancer patients, and at medical centers around town. Two, Spencer Riordan and Rebecca Eberle, received Service Above Self awards for exceeding 99 volunteer hours.
Guests convened the evening at roughly 6 p.m., meeting outside the ballroom for drinks and to peruse some 30 silent auction items and bid on them with their smart phones. The club is one of the first in the area to introduce BidPal, the silent auction app with which galagoers bid privately on silent auction items, monitor them throughout the bidding period, and rebid if things get competitive.
Later, inside the ballroom, there’s a live auction that always seems to defy expectations. For instance, a oneyear lease on a QX80 Infiniti sport-utility vehicle valued at $15,000 went for just $8,500, and a 3.14 total-carat weight diamond necklace from Jones and Son Diamond and Bridal Fine Jewelry valued the same went for $9,250 — jewelry and autos rarely fetch their listed value in a live auction — but a painting by Heike Talbert valued at $4,000 went for $6,000 and a dinner party for 10 at the Governor’s Mansion went for $14,000.
The combined auction gross revenue was nearly $89,000.
Close to the end of the night, before music by ballroom favorites Tragickly White, the club premiered Mami Renaud’s latest Fund-a-Night documentary short. Renaud is the wife of Craig Renaud, who along with brother Brent, is an award-winning film documentarian and founder of the Little Rock Film Festival.
These shorts are the most cinematic pitches for an event that I can imagine (Vimeo. com/121809725). They are as well-wrought as anything invited to a Hollywood red-carpet affair, and these mini-stories — in this case Wendi Fortenberry and her mother Marie Vince of Franklinton, La., who last year were residents of the lodge for more than three months at no cost — precede a pledge drive that, this night, raised more than $32,000 from the crowd. (Along with an earlier mail-in campaign, the Fund-a-Night total was more than $72,000.)
The total for this year’s campaign is roughly $400,000. That’s net, said executive director Elizabeth Clogston. Most of that goes toward operating costs, but $25,000 from each of the last three balls has been put toward the purchase of a backup generator for the building (to be installed by next winter).