Lacking Leader and New Blood, ‘Gourmet Gala’ Is Called Off

The death of a gala.

Not a pretty subject. But this year’s “Gourmet Gala,” for the past three years one of the county’s de rigueur mega-bashes, was recently laid to rest.

No sooner did the invitations arrive than the Sept. 23 event at the Irvine Hilton and Towers was canceled.

Who’s to blame? No one will claim it. Not the staff at the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation in Costa Mesa. Not the woman who brought it to Orange County from the March of Dimes headquarters in New York. Not the woman who chaired it last year.

“The bottom line is, we know it takes a strong social type to attract a crowd,” says Phil Beukema, director of the Costa Mesa chapter. “And this year we couldn’t find a chairwoman. So, we convened a committee of people who wanted to help us pull it together, and it just didn’t come off.”

The first gala was chaired by developer Kathryn Thompson, who was invited by bigwigs at the March of Dimes headquarters in New York to bring the event to Orange County (the gala is staged in many of the country’s social capitals). Thompson had social clout of major proportions, and New York knew it. The next year, developer Bill Lusk of Newport Beach, a man loaded with socio-business connections, took the helm. Last year, Newport Beach social activist Mary Ann Miller carried the ball.

The next step, says Thompson, was for Miller to “promote the chairmanship for the following year.”

And Miller did. But the “Gourmet Gala” has an overwhelming workload. Its chairperson must bring in a dozen chefs to whip up fare in a dozen theme-decorated booths. The chairperson must bring in top interior designers to decorate those booths. Then, there’s the food judging to line up--the food critics who are brought in from around the world. And the cocktail reception, the sit-down gourmet dinner, the food judging, the entertainment, the dancing.

When Miller got on the phone and started to call the “who’s who” of local gala giving, she came up with zero.

“One woman couldn’t do it because she was pregnant,” Miller says. “Another said she’d do it if she could ask a certain business to sponsor it. But her husband asked her not to approach that company this year.” Another had just signed up to chair another benefit.

And Miller was unwilling to take on the gala again.

“I was booth design chairman for the gala for two years before I chaired it,” she said. “It was time for me to move on, time for new blood.”

But the new blood, or even the old for that matter, did not step forward.

What’s a gala to do? Miller is working with the March of Dimes to develop a network so that a guild, not just one person, will organize the event.

Meanwhile, Miller, who is known for keeping her social ear to the ground, says: “There’s a change going on out there. A big change. I think a lot of the charities are thinking about restructuring. They are getting more realistic about what they can expect. There have been a lot of fad parties, galas where we all hopped on the bandwagon because they were fun.

“But now, there are so many charities we are all taking a second look and just going to those events we are really committed to.

“There’s some attrition going on. You’re not going to see the same women chairing the same balls. They’re worn out. They’ve been doing it over and over. There simply has to be some new blood.”

The reason newcomers are reluctant, Miller says, may be that they’re not as connected as her social peers.

“I’ve been in the community for 25 years,” she says. “I can get on the phone and call somebody for financial support or their connections because they know I’m somebody they can count on.”

And what does new blood do, if it has no connections?

“Begin like we all did, years ago,” Miller says. “Start with a letter. I don’t like to call somebody cold and ask them for something.

“A letter opens the door a crack. They toss the letter in the trash, but it sticks in their brain. Then you call them on the phone, ask them, ‘What help can you give?’ ”

Thompson confesses she is “very sad” about the gala being canceled.

“I thought it was an event everyone enjoyed,” she says. “I guess it’s a lesson Orange County needs to learn. Galas don’t just happen. They take a lot of work by a strong chairperson and a strong committee.

“It’s peer-to-peer pressure that makes them happen. Let’s say, for instance, I call William Lyon and ask him to buy a table at a gala that I’m going to chair.

“He is hard-put to say no, because he knows he’ll probably be calling me next week to ask me the same thing.”