September 16, 2005

Starry night raises $20,000 for David's House

by Anthony Glassman

Toledo--David�s House Compassion, the city�s most prominent AIDS service organization, doubled attendance at its 15th annual fundraiser on September 10, Supporters Reaching Out.

�I was most pleased with the turnout,� said planning committee co-chair David Wishart. The final tally is expected to top 500 attendees, double last year�s figure.

His co-chair, Gregory Kane, noted, �I thought it was an absolutely wonderful event. The commitment from the committee to put it together was unparalleled in my experience.�

After spending two years as a street fair on Adams in downtown Toledo, the event moved to Centennial Terrace in Sylvania. The open-air facility fulfilled the name of the event, �Dancin� in the Moonlight,� covering the festivities with a canopy of stars and moonlight.

Planning committee member Leisa Leininger pointed out that, historically, the event had moved every few years, and the lower cost of overhead with Centennial Terrace coupled with widespread road work in downtown Toledo made the new venue an attractive proposition.

�Our committee will be getting together in the next couple of weeks to debrief and finalize all the numbers,� Leininger said. She noted that the �preliminary count indicates that the event raised almost $20,000. We are still adding final expenses so we are not sure of the final profit for David�s House yet, but this is more than double what we grossed from the last few years� events.�

Wishart noted that the event reached the break-even point a week before the event, so all tickets sales after that went into the plus column. And this year�s event saw large amounts of community donations.

�We had such wonderful food,� he said. �We had such a tremendous amount of donations from area restaurants.�

Twenty-five restaurants, companies, stores and individuals donated the food, which ranged from hot dogs and hamburgers provided by Compass, David�s House�s parent company, to Katz Sisters Authentic Midwestern Cheesecake and Le Petite Gourmet.

The silent auction further augmented the evening�s proceeds, with sixty people and companies donating items.

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