About 420 guests went on a tour of the world’s carnivals on Saturday night without ever leaving the Marriott Chicago’s ballroom.
The Infant Welfare Society’s biennial event, this year called “Celebrate Carnevale,” was a major success, raising about $300,000 and sending patrons from Bourbon Street to the Caribbean. Patrons started at “New Orleans,” where guests were given spangly beads and the Spats Studebaker Band played Dixieland Jazz.
Everyone received a passport, which was supposed to be stamped at each destination throughout the evening and then entered in a drawing for two-round trip tickets on American Airlines to anywhere in the continental United States.
Among the “stops” was a Venetian Carnevale market featuring masks created by students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Hundreds of items were up for bid in the Grand Canal Silent Auction, including one-of-a-kind gift baskets, such as Jello baskets and a tower of Beanie Babies, among others.
A Samba parade energized the crowd and led guests into the “Rio-inspired” dining area. After dinner was a silent auction on a pair of first-class tickets anywhere in the world ($7,500), a bassett hound ($650), a junior pedal-power Mercedes-Benz ($350), a Hawaiian getaway ($3,200), and a Breakfast at Tiffany’s package with a day of shopping on the Magnificent Mile ($1,500).
Before the evening was over, patrons stopped at Martinique, where they enjoyed cigars (from Club Macanudo), Remy Martin and jazz from the Steve Hashimoto Trio, and Trinidad, where the draw was a coffee cabana and music from the Steel Express.
A lot of work went into the evening, with much of the credit going to chairs JoEllen Bursinger Zacksand Sherry Schmitter Block. The gala was an event of WGN-TV Children’s Charities, a fund of the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation. The charity provides comprehensive medical, dental, social and mental health services to 12,000 disadvantaged children and their mothers.
Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book and Paper Arts culminated its “Archibookture” exhibition with a benefit Feb. 25. The evening also served as the unveiling of the center’s beautiful new digs in the Ludington Building, 1104 S. Wabash.
The exhibit, which ran from Feb. 11-25, featured “books as structures” as architects and artists designed pieces of art using books. About 200 patrons bid on those items in live and silent auctions.
The event raised $11,000, which will benefit the center’s scholarship and outreach programs. It was a casual evening, with Columbia College students participating and everybody turning out in comfortable dress. The Jazz Advocates kept the mood lively, while patrons drank cocktails and ate hors d’oeuvres from the Chicago Firehouse Restaurant. Among the participants were the first director of the center, Marilyn Sward, and current director Bill Drendel. Tickets were $75 per person.
Channel 7’s new anchor Sylvia Perez recently emceed the Hinsdale Hospital Medical Staff Auxiliary’s second winter gala, “Love Songs,” at the Four Seasons Hotel. The evening drew 420 patrons and raised $50,000 for the renovation of the hospital’s pediatrics department. Romantic music was provided by the Michael Lerich Orchestra. Co-chairs of the event were Sue Kett, Rita Girgis and Nancy Satterfield.
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