On Sunday, September 27th, Wells Bring Hope’s founder and president Barbara Goldberg welcomed guests to a beautiful home high in the Santa Monica Mountains, overlooking the San Fernando Valley. The theme was “Broadway Comes to Beverly Hills” featuring Jerry Sternbach on piano and Jason Graae singing and playing the oboe.
With perfect weather once again, guests enjoyed the expansive lawn and comfortable seating in this contemporary and newly built home. Silent auction tables graced the perimeter, offering plenty of enticing things to buy, all donated by the board, friends of WBH, and generous corporate partners.
The bar featured four enticing mixed drinks to carry out our theme: A Standing Ovation, Anything Goes, Curtain Call, and The Understudy. They were mixed to perfection by bartenders, Kim and Lazlo. Guests nibbled on delicious food from Edible 360. The many delicious bites included coconut shrimp, flank steak with chimichurri, and more.
With many newcomers in attendance, Founder and President, Barbara Goldberg told guests about our cause and what makes it worthy of their support. She also introduced Wells Bring Hope’s hard-working board and its Director of Operations, Kate Cusimano, who did so much to make the event a success. She also thanked our generous event sponsors – Lido Advisors, Lone Cypress Wealth Management of Raymond James, Lisa Detanna, Laurie Adami, and board members Patricia Vick, Leslee Greathead, Carol Rosen, and Marsha Hierbaum.
In addition to sampling delicious cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, guests took advantage of the red carpet backdrop for photo ops.
Our honoree this year was Kevin Kilroy, who was inspired by Gil Garcetti he talked about the water crisis in West Africa. As a shy 13-year-old, she mustered the courage to speak to her congregation at six Masses and do some serious campaigning at her school and among family friends. As a result, Kevin raised enough funds to drill more than five wells and recruited many new donors who continue to support Wells Bring Hope today. At the event, Kevin, now a grown-up lawyer, spoke eloquently to the crowd, which included her parents, sister, and friends.
During her remarks, Barbara spoke about two people who had a profound influence on the growth of Wells Bring Hope: Ken Kilroy, father of our honoree, who introduced WBH to the founder and chairman of Panda Restaurant Group who supported WBH with over $1 million in operating expense funding. This enabled all donor dollars to go directly to funding wells.
Also present at the event was Stanley Liu, long-time Panda Restaurant Group executive, who helped manage our relationship with Panda and also supported Panda employees who took up WBH’s cause.
Auctioneer extraordinaire, Mark Shustrin, began his very lively, action-packed appeal in an effort to separate guests from their money!
Guests got the chance to bid on some exciting travel packages including trips to Belize, St. Croix, Bali and New York: City & Country. The evening climaxed with a Last Paddle Battle, and the lucky winner is looking forward to a two-night stay at Two Bunch Palms!
Special thanks to our caterer, Chef Luis of Edible 360 and his dedicated staff, our dedicated valet service, Park PCA, and Peggy Kelly of Timeless Celebrations back to orchestrate it all! Perhaps most importantly, we are incredibly grateful to the many volunteers who gave up their Sunday to help. We truly could not have done it without them, especially the amazing scholars and teachers from Odyssey STEM Academy.
Thanks to all who came to support our effort to save lives with safe water, particularly our hard-working board of directors, all of our event sponsors, and of course, our photographer Tatsu, who captured it all! All of the photos can be viewed and downloaded from the WBH Facebook page.
