BENTON — Test your luck and go all-in for people with developmental disabilities with the first ever Bet With Heart Casino Night, presented by Civitan Services on July 26.
“We are going to have craps, roulette, blackjack and Texas Hold ’Em,” said Bekka Wilkerson, special-events coordinator for Civitan Services. “I like roulette because you can spin the wheel.
“This is an event that has nothing to do with skill, but you are coming in and seeing where the cards may fall.”
The event will take place at 111 N. Main St. in downtown Benton, beginning at 6 p.m. Tickets are $30 per person and include $100 worth of chips to play with. All the money “won” goes back into the organization. There will also be a 50/50 drawing, a silent auction, heavy hors d’oeuvres and a cocktail bar.
For more information or to purchase tickets, call Wilkerson at (501) 776-0691 or visit tinyurl.com/BetWithHeartCS. Wilkerson said only about 200 tickets are available, and half of those have already been sold.
“We want this to be an event that people put on their calendars in advance and want to have their tickets for early,” Wilkerson said.
Civitan Services provides opportunities for men, women and children with developmental disabilities, and Wilkerson said the organization does that in a lot of ways. It has an adult-service campus, a preschool in Benton, a donation center and a resale shop. She said Civitan Services has 166 adult clients and 122 preschool clients.
“So we are already busting at the seams,” Wilkerson said. “There are so many families who need the services that we provide.
“We are glad to be able to do that.”
This is the first time Civitan Services has hosted an event in downtown Benton, and Wilkerson said the Downtown Benton Business Owners Association has been very gracious and “has jumped on our bandwagon.”
“It has been really cool to have their support,” she said.
For the past four years, Civitan Services has put on a murder-mystery dinner, but Wilkerson said organizers wanted to mix it up a little bit and give that a break.
“Last year, during our murder-mystery dinner, we kind of split it up and had the play and the dinner, but we also had casino tables,” she said. “But we had trouble dragging people away from the casino tables to get them to go eat dinner and watch the show.”
So she decided to just take out the show and have a casino night.
“This year also marks Civitan’s 60th anniversary, which is the diamond anniversary,” she said. “So we have kind of themed everything around that sparkle and diamond anniversary.”
Wilkerson has been with Civitan Services for two years, and right before she came aboard, the nonprofit opened its new adult center on Reynolds Road in Bryant. She said proceeds from fundraisers such as Casino Night will help retire what is left of the facility’s debt and also bring in new opportunities and new programs.
“There are a lot of changes going on right now in the way of development disabilities, so all of our fundraisers are focused on being able to bring in new opportunities for our men, women and children with disabilities,” Wilkerson said. “We want to provide the latest and greatest in whatever it takes to meet their needs.”
She said Civitan Services doesn’t have a larger parent organization.
“We are Saline County-based and service all of central Arkansas,” Wilkerson said. “Any money that we raise stays here and benefits people directly in our community.”
Civitan Services has three other fundraisers, including Denim & Diamonds, a golf tournament and a walk for awareness in October. This year’s theme will be superheroes, which Wilkerson said is right in her wheelhouse because she is obsessed with Wonder Woman.
“For years, we did a Peace, Love and 5K, and last year, we did the 12K of Christmas, and it was great, but it still didn’t hit the mark …,” she said. “All of our events kind of fit into a different niche. [Casino Night] is a little more fancy, and the walk appeals to the more athletic folks.”
Before joining Civitan, Wilkerson worked for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, performing thyroid-cancer clinical trials for seven years. She said working with clients with developmental disabilities has always been her first love.
“I chased a few other things, kind of for the sake of killing those dreams, I guess,” Wilkerson said. “This was the best decision I ever made. From the first day I walked on campus, it felt like home.”
Wilkerson said she always looks forward to an opportunity to share Civitan Services with the community, and these fundraisers are just “an excellent chance to bring in a variety of people who don’t necessary know what we do or who we serve.”
“It’s an opportunity in the community to raise money for a good cause and raise awareness for a good cause, and it is a fun night if you want to attend — throwing up a casino in the middle of downtown Benton,” Wilkerson said.
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.