Fundraiser goes festive at Evolve Rio Carnival

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --1/29/2014--
Melissa Bandy and Nick Copas are co-chairs of the Center for Youth and Families Evolve Rio Carnival fundraising event
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --1/29/2014-- Melissa Bandy and Nick Copas are co-chairs of the Center for Youth and Families Evolve Rio Carnival fundraising event

Carnival, the Rio de Janeiro version of Mardi Gras, doesn’t get underway until later in the month (Feb. 28-March 4), but you can get an early taste at 2014 Evolve Rio Carnival, the main fundraiser for the Centers for Youth and Families, a nonprofit organization whose mission is “creating healthy children, families and communities.”

The celebration will be Saturday - 6 p.m. VIP Patron Appreciation Party, 7 p.m. general admission - in the Grand Ballroom of the Little Rock Marriott Hotel, West Markham and Louisiana streets, Little Rock.

Hillcrest Brazilian restaurant Cafe Bossa Nova will cater the VIP party and jazz trumpeter Rodney Block & The Real Music Lovers will provide the entertainment. The hotel will feed guests at sponsored tables and provide a buffet. “Rio De Janeiro Sponsor” Glazer’s Distributors of Arkansas is providing the beer and wine and the makings of what co-chairman Nick Copas calls a “signature cocktail.”

Tickets are $100. Call (501) 666-9436, or email Marketing@CFYF.org or visit tinyurl.com/kzeja4n.

The proceeds, says Centers for Youth and Families development officer Chris Shenep, go to the state’s oldest nonprofit’s prevention services for all ages, “designed to assist families before intervention and/or treatment services are needed.”

That includes classes and programs to help equip parents to deal with learning difficulties, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and blended families; programs to prevent child abuse; and even workout classes to help elderly clients prevent debilitating or life-threatening conditions.

It’s the third such event, following “Evolve” fundraisers in October 2011 and January 2013, and the first at the Marriott. (Last year it was at Next Level Events in the old train station.) It’s also the first to be run by the foundation’s Emerging Leaders young professionals group.

“Evolve” spun off from a previous Centers fundraiser called Splatters, which also included an annual golf tournament, now a separate event. The theme for 2013 was Chinese New Year; for 2011, “A Night in Miami.”

Deciding to “locate” the event in Rio was “a group decision,” Copas says. The Emerging Leaders had a brainstorming session at which several suggestions were tossed about.

“We considered Russia, the Winter Olympics,” added co-chairman Melissa Bandy.

“And we talked about maybe doing a period piece, a la Downton Abbey,” Copas says. “We really liked the idea; it was fun.”

However, it would have raised all kinds of issues when it came to things like period costumes.

So, “Rio’s the one that stuck,” Copas says.

Shenep says it is also the third year for the Emerging Leaders, which started in 2011, and which is “basically an advocacy group,” Copas explains.

“It’s unique,” Shenep adds. “It partners younger adults with older nonprofit [veterans].”

Copas and Bandy are working on their first “Evolve” event together, but they collaborated on the golf tournament in October “that was the most successful the Centers put on,” Shenep says. Chinese New Year brought in a little more than $100,000; this year, in a larger venue, they’re hoping for $125,000.

The fundraiser will feature silent and live auctions, including:

Two trip packages, one to Northern Tuscany, one a private tour of the Samuel Adams Brewery in Boston complete with a McCormick & Schmick’s dinner with beer pairings, three-night stay at the Fairmont Hotel and airfare for two.

Sports memorabilia, with a “Detroit Dynasty” package of autographed baseballs from Arkansas natives and current Detroit Tigers Drew Smyly and Torii Hunter, Tiger standouts Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera and late Hall of Famer George Kell.

Dinners such as “Cookout With a View” for 20 people on the balcony of law firm Dover Dixon Horne on the 37th floor of the Metropolitan Bank Building downtown, and a four-course meal with beer pairings for 15 at Big Orange.

Copas and Bandy say they had already met their sponsorship goal a month ahead of time. “Our success is really to be attributed to the people we brought in to work on it,” Copas says.

He’s particularly proud of, though a bit mysterious about, the plans for staging the ballroom. He did say that the event will feature acrobats doing amazing things on silk, fire breathers and dancers from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock theater arts and dance department putting on a Carnival-inspired piece.

The name of the event is a play on the evolution of the organization, founded in 1884 (it has gone through numerous names and has recently been going through some staff changes), as well as the fundraiser’s changing theme.

“Our focus was not just looking at the 2014 plan, but on the staging of the event,” Copas says. “We’re setting up for the next five years.”

High Profile, Pages 35 on 02/09/2014

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