The day of the ball we headed to Essex to the Stock Brook Golf Club. The room for the Charity Ball was GORGEOUS. There were wonderful flowers for the tables, Chinese red envelopes for the raffle tickets and red lanterns to put coins in for those people daft enough to use their right hand to drink with or those rude enough to swear. They had also organized a professional Toastmaster who was fantastic. He was decked out in his Toastmaster "Tails" and greeted everyone as they arrived, with the ladies in beautiful ball gowns and the men looking like 007!
We sat down to a lovely meal followed by an LWB speech and photoshow and then an auction and dancing to a band and disco. Julie Flynn Coleman was kind enough to relieve me of the duty of giving the speech, which focused on a little girl who had died earlier in the year and how there were so many children still in need of live saving or life changing surgery in China.
Caroline and trusty Toastmaster then launched into the Auction, which had wonderful items to bid on. Then it was time to quickly draw the raffle before the band started. Again a wonderful choice of band...but even better, a guest who wanted to sing with them but who would only do so everytime $200 was donated!!
As we were leaving, one helper counting the lantern donations said that as she viewed the photoshow, she just kept thinking of her own children and how that could be them in need. She felt the room, although not connected through adoption, had responded as any parent would "These children are the same age as mine…I need to help!"LWB is so very grateful to these 3 wonderful women. Their efforts for that one evening raised enough money to fund Physiotherapy in orphanages in Anhui, pay for hip, leg and foot surgery for one little girl with very deformed legs, saved the lives of 2 children by raising the cash for their heart surgeries, will help one child to talk with the aid of tongue surgery and more……. The event was a really great evening, organised by 3 wonderful, gifted and caring women.
Arlene Howard
Mobile Medical Program Co-Ordinator
