Sweet Art for Devereux Sweethearts

Ever see a five-foot ice cream cone?

If you’d like to, go to Beverly Hills this Sunday, where “Ice Cream Art” by Mildred Jarrow Riley will be displayed and sold to raise funds for the Devereux Foundation, a Devon, Pa.-based organization that has been treating emotionally and developmentally disabled children, youths and adults since 1912.

Riley’s ice cream artworks, featuring several five-foot free-standing cones, will be shown at the Rodeo Collection, 421 N. Rodeo Drive, from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday. All proceeds from art sales, Riley said, will go to Devereux.

There will be real ice cream, too, an all-you-can-eat ice cream sundae buffet provided by Robin Rose Ice Cream.

If you’re not fond of ice cream, KIKKA Restaurant is donating hors d’oeuvres, and there also will be champagne and edible “Chocolate Art.”

Riley, who will be 70 in April, has been painting all her life, but became a serious artist about four years ago. “I did the ice cream art simply because it was a fun thing to do,” Riley said. “And for a good cause, the Devereux Foundation, that I wanted to do something for.”

Music for the event will be provided by the Brentwood Dixieland Jazz Band and the Lori Richards “Celebrate the Sky” children’s singers. Gifts are being donated by Standard Brands Paint Co. Tickets, with those proceeds also going to Devereux, are $25 for adults; $10 for children. For ticket information, call (213) 653-6610.

Art Aiding AIDS

Artists also are getting into the fund-raising act for other causes, among them AIDS research and education. Last Sunday, AIDS Project Los Angeles raised about $15,000 for its programs through an art walk and silent auction at galleries on La Brea Avenue, with artwork donated by local galleries and artists.

And now, the AIDS Civil Rights Project of National Gay Rights Advocates (NGRA) is planning a special fund-raiser, “Artists Against AIDS,” here on April 10. Twenty-six artists and 31 galleries are sponsoring the black-tie-optional event to be held at the Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Simard & Halm Gallery and Art Source L.A., 669 North La Cienega Blvd. Special guests are Joan Rivers, Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and State Sen. Art Agnos.

Established two years ago as a special division of NGRA, the AIDS Civil Rights Project was the first legal entity in the country to devote full-time resources to countering discrimination against AIDS patients.

Tickets to the evening event are $150 per person. Call (213) 650-6200.

Monrovia Looks Past 100

Monrovia, one of a dozen cities and towns in the Los Angeles area celebrating centennials this year, is hoping some of its current centennial projects will still be around when it comes time to celebrate the San Gabriel Valley city’s 200th birthday.

“We’re leaving four monuments to the future, things that are going to carry on throughout the next century,” said Betty Sandford, Monrovia’s centennial chairman.

Sandford, who was born and raised in Monrovia, said that since the city’s 100-year celebration began last May, there have been the usual events, parades, 5- and 10-K runs, concerts, art festivals, etc. But she and the “thousands of volunteers in the community” are proud of some constructive projects they began during the centennial.

One, a historical museum for Monrovia--the city was named for William Monroe, a railroad man who was one of its founders in May, 1887--will be completed in a building in the city’s Recreation Park.

Two, a Monrovia historical curriculum, including a book about the city, information packets and slides for the schools, has been prepared for the city’s schoolchildren.

Three, a consortium of representatives from city government, schools, the Chamber of Commerce, churches, social service agencies and business and industry has begun a program to increase the number of family day-care homes in Monrovia, and to provide additional recreational programs in the schools. It also hopes to build additional child-care centers for Monrovia children in the future.

Four, a permanent office of Monrovia volunteers has been established by the city and school district to develop an ongoing volunteer presence in the community.

“I am personally proudest of the child-care programs,” Sandford said. “One of our goals through the centennial was the enhancement of the quality of life in the community, especially for the children. And a significant need for them, and their parents, is affordable child care.”

A Two-Family Project

“Adios, Alex” was written in yellow on the frosting of a big chocolate cake. There were teddy bears with logo T-shirts for Alejandro Barron to take with him to Mexico City and the reunion with the large family he hadn’t seen for a year.

Barron, 20, wheeled his chair, a new hotshot model, closer to the podium and, in Spanish, spoke into the mike. “I have recovered as best I can from my tragedy,” he said, “in a way I didn’t know was possible. I won’t forget you.” Gathered around him was his Los Angeles “family”--among them Constance Towers Gavin, former ambassador to Mexico John Gavin’s wife and founder of “Project Connie,” which brought Alejandro, a double amputee, and other victims of the 1985 Mexico earthquake to Los Angeles for medical treatment.

Gavin, who introduced herself as Barron’s “surrogate mother,” was misty-eyed as she presented him with a “Project Connie” scholarship to finish his secondary education in Mexico City “so we can bring him back and put him in college up here.”

It was a bittersweet farewell. “Everyone in this room has touched his life,” a Red Cross volunteer said. The Red Cross had provided Barron with an apartment, living expenses, volunteer drivers and the impetus to go to night school to learn English. Medical care, including two arm operations to repair nerve and muscle damage and new legs, was donated by UCLA. Western Airlines was flying him home.

Gavin was pleased. “He’s going home looking like a whole person,” she said, which was very important to him. “He has accepted the fact he’s going to have these legs, which are cosmetic only.” (Barron’s legs had to be amputated too high to accommodate a more functional type of prosthesis.) Still, his new family wondered what lay ahead.

But Barron, who was pinned beneath the steel and concrete of a collapsed Mexico City school building before being rescued that terrible September day, is more than just a survivor. At the hospital soon after his rescue, doctors had taken one look and said, “We might as well let this one die. . . .” Today, Barron looks toward a future in computer work.

“You have been our inspiration,” Al Panico, Red Cross director of disaster assistance here, told Barron. Then everyone gathered around for a last “family portrait.”