Pair declare event will be a ball

“Garden of Hope” is the theme of the 20th Century Club’s Lodge 2012 Hope Ball, which is being shepherded by co-chairmen Shannon King (left) and Terri Holmes.
“Garden of Hope” is the theme of the 20th Century Club’s Lodge 2012 Hope Ball, which is being shepherded by co-chairmen Shannon King (left) and Terri Holmes.

— It’s hard enough to undergo treatment for cancer.

But it’s even harder if you’re being treated in a clinic miles away from home, in a city that’s not within easy driving distance from where you live. And still harder if you don’t have a place to stay, or have much money (if any) for a hotel room.

But, only a few blocks from the clinic where you’re being treated, there’s a lodge with comfortable, almost luxurious, hotel-like rooms, where you and your caregiver can spend the nights. And it will cost you nothing.

Last year, the 20th Century Club completed its 21-room Little Rock lodge at Cedar Street and Maryland Avenue, just across Interstate 630 from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the cancer treatment facilities on its campus.

The lodge is not tied to any particular institution, however; all you need to stay there is to be a cancer patient, and to be in need.

Each private, key-card-entry room has two queen-size beds, a recliner and an easy chair, a tiny kitchenette with refrigerator and microwave oven, a large, private en suite bathroom and a flat-screen television. They’re cushier than a lot of hotel rooms, and cancer patients can stay for an extended period.

The lodge also offers a second-floor conference center, a gathering room with a fireplace and large-screen TV, a large communal kitchen where dinner is served three times a week (and, three days a week, morning smoothies), a small library with two computers with Internet access, and a laundry room. On Thursday nights, there’s bingo.

It’s no wonder that the 21 rooms have pretty much been full since the lodge opened in April.

The club, whose website, hopeawayfromhome.org, reflects its “Hope Away From Home” motto, raised the $3 million to build it. And its annual Hope Ball raises the money to operate it.

The ball has brought in about $300,000 a year for the past few years.

This year’s event, with a “Garden of Hope” theme, will take place at 6 p.m. March 10 in the Wally Allen Ballroom, Statehouse Convention Center, Markham and Main streets, Little Rock.

Tickets are $200. Dress code is black-tie optional. The event includes a cocktail hour; a sitdown, three-course dinner with wine; live and silent auctions; and dancing until midnight to the Memphis band Party Planet. Free parking is available in the Stephens Inc.-owned deck (the entrance is on Louisiana Street between Markham and Second streets).

Windstream Communications, as it has been for the past two balls, is the presenting sponsor. Glazer’s is providing the wine and champagne for the auction winners.

Bill Hartnedy of Blackman Auctioneers is running the live auction. Craig O’Neill will be the master of ceremonies. “Everybody is so thrilled to have him back,” says Hope Ball cochairman Shannon King.

“We’ve all been touched by cancer. I’ve had family members and really dear friends die,” says the ball’s other cochairman, Terri Holmes.

“It’s the cause, the mission of the 20th Century Club to make it less difficult for people [with cancer], providing housing at no cost while they’re enduring cancer treatments.

“Patients stay a week at a time — sometimes they go home for the weekend — but many face the choice between driving back and forth or not [having] treatment. This gives them one less thing to worry about.”

“It’s traumatic. It’s a lonely thing,” King adds. “It gives them a chance to be among other people.” Having facilities that allow them to bring along a caregiver is a godsend as well, she says. “Without a caregiver, they really are alone.”

The ball will also, for the fourth consecutive year, feature a corps of Angels, high school junior and senior girls from all over central Arkansas. The number varies each year (this year there will be 20). The Angels volunteer at the lodge. In return they get community service hours to report on college applications, and a first-hand appreciation of what it takes to help people who need it.

Providing no-cost lodging for cancer patients in need has been the club’s objective for almost 50 years.

At one time it operated a lodge in the downtown Quapaw Quarter, but closed it several years ago because it was too small, too expensive to maintain and, being a historic structure, couldn’t be retrofitted to meet the requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

“It was an old house,” King explains. “It was a money pit, there was only room for seven, and they had to share a bathroom. Cancer patients need their privacy.”

In 2005, the club started paying to put up patients in the Baptist Hospital Plaza Hotel.

Since the new lodge opened, it has racked up more than 4,000 “patient nights,” Holmes says, “and it hasn’t been a year. It stays a pretty full house.”

Executive Director Elizabeth Clogston provides specifics: 4,277 “patient nights,” through Feb. 8, with an average of 448 per month, more than 500 per month in December (a record 535) and January.

Residents ranging in age from 16 to more than 80 have come from 124 cities in 11 states. The average length of stay is three weeks, she says; the longest stay so far, 68 days.

The club’s approximately 120 members all volunteer at the lodge, doing what needs to be done.

King has been with the club for five years. “She brought me in” four years ago, says Holmes, a longtime friend.

“It’s just a great group of women involved,” King explains. “This is the hardestworking group I’ve ever seen,” Holmes adds.

The two women have been working on the ball for three years, the previous two raising money from corporate sponsors. Both are now in their first year on the board.

“This is the most fun ball out there,” King says. “You can print that.”

The centerpiece of the auctions will be a piece of jewelry with a 4-carat Tanzanite stone surrounded by canary and white diamonds on an 18-karatgold chain, valued at $21,000, from Jones & Son. The jewelers — father (Darrow) and son (Jacob) — will receive the club’s Hope Award this year for their continuing support, including the donation of bracelets and earrings for the Angels.

Other auction items include trips, meals, parties, a fur wrap from Fletcher & Bensky’s and a unique item, donated by a member, a cancer survivor paying forward: Naming rights for a new brass bell that will hang in the lodge, and which patients leaving the lodge will get to ring, King says, “on their way to a new journey and away from chemo and radiation.”

High Profile, Pages 35 on 02/19/2012

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