Benefit Nets $13,500 for Playwrights

Mark Taper Forum’s opening-night benefit performance of “Jelly’s Last Jam” March 7 netted $13,500. Proceeds will support the work of black playwrights in the Center Theatre Group’s Mentor Playwright Program. The after-party at Stepps Restaurant was attended by author and director George C. Wolfe and cast members Leilani Jones, Obba Babatunde and Freda Payne.

* Crippled Children’s Guild of Orthopaedic Hospital netted about $130,000 at its 10th annual travel auction March 16 at the Los Angeles Marriott. The “Celebrate the Children” event was sponsored by the Las Madrecitas Auxiliary of the guild. To date, the auxiliary has raised more than $1 million for the hospital. Lynn Frankel was chair.

* Alzheimer’s Assn. was the beneficiary March 15 of grants totaling more than $130,000, which included a $100,000 grant for in-home respite care and adult day care from the H. N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation. The announcement was made at a luncheon sponsored by Home Savings of America at Century Plaza Towers.

* Childrens AIDS Center of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles netted $75,000 at its Oscar Night party March 25 at Le Mondrian Hotel. Panasonic Pro Audio sponsored the event.

* Speech and Language Development Center’s seventh annual fashion show and luncheon March 16 at Le Meridien Hotel Newport Beach was attended by 550 guests. The $10,000 raised will provide essential services, equipment and materials for students served at the center.

* Hospital of the Good Samaritan has received the first payment on a two-year, $150,000 pledge from the James Irvine Foundation. The gift will help fund a program to provide neuro-developmental follow-up care to high-risk infants in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

* Jewish Home for the Aging’s Feb. 20 Ida Mayer Cummings “Tree of Life” luncheon raised $154,000 for the home. Five-hundred guests attended the event in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton.