The Women’s Shelter of Central Arkansas board members and staff are asking people to join them in Paris this year for The Great Escape.
It’s really just the Conway Expo Center and Fairgrounds, 2505 E. Oak St., but the fundraising event will have a Paris theme.
Annette Miller, chairwoman of the event’s fashion show, said the Toad Suck Queens choose a theme each year for The Great Escape.
“This is Come to Paris,” she said.
“We’ve got a runway that’s going to go down the middle of the Expo Center, and we’ll have an Eiffel Tower. It’s going to be all lit up,” Miller said.
The Great Escape will be a two-day event for the first time, Miller said.
It will be held from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Admission is $10, and several spa services will be available for $10 each, including manicures, haircuts, mini pedicures and massages.
Some free services will be available, too.
“Conway Regional Medical Center is going to send out different departments to do blood pressure, glucose checks, skin checks [for cancer],” Miller said.
Booths will include those with educational materials, as well as jewelry, makeup and clothing vendors.
“Someone will be wheeling around red roses, selling them,” Miller said.
The fashion show, featuring several Conway businesses, will run intermittently from 1-3 p.m. both days.
“If someone wants to say, ‘I can’t be there at 1 o’clock,’ well, it’s OK if you can’t be there,” she said.
Miller said sorority members will be modeling but that fashions for women of all ages will be shown.
In keeping with the Paris theme, a bistro will be available to buy food and drinks, and a Parisian backdrop will be available for photos.
“We’ll have a picture of Paris in the background, and we’ll have berets there and little [fake] mustaches. We are going to have a sign when the photographer will be there, but any other time people can just get up there and snap with their camera or phone,” Miller said.
The point is to make money for the shelter, though.
A highlight of the fundraiser will be the silent auction, she said.
“We have an amazing silent auction,” Miller said. “We’ve got some really nice stuff for our silent auction.”
L.T. Clark, publicity chairwoman for the event, said inventory from a former home-decor shop in Conway has been donated.
“We’re going to have a huge silent auction,” she said. In addition to the items from the store that closed, “we tried to get [members of] the board and committees to bring in one to two things themselves.”
The event has been held for several years, but the board didn’t hold the event last year to spend more time planning for this one.
“We skipped last year so we could plan more,” Miller said. “We tried to take a step back and make sure it’s a good event and that we do a good fundraiser for the women.”
Proceeds will go toward programs at the Women’s Shelter of Central Arkansas, as well as counseling, legal services, food and supplies, Clark said.
Beth Goodrich, executive director of the shelter, said the fundraiser is vital for the shelter.
“This is super important,” she said. “All the proceeds that we raise for this event go back into our programs, everything that we do, basically — shelter, food, it helps with utilities; it helps with everything. We put it in our operating fund. It doesn’t pay for staff.
“Not having [a fundraiser] last year, this is our opportunity to make up for that,” Goodrich said.
“It gives people an opportunity to help without us having to compromise our location or safety for anyone, and they can have fun while they do it,” she said.
For more information about the event, call Miller at (501) 730-3397, Clark at (501) 733-1959, Angela Foster at (501) 733-1119 or Jamie Boyd at (501) 472-3064.
To find out more about the shelter, call (501) 329-7405. The crisis hotline is (866) 358-2265.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.