5 Children’s Groups Benefit From Gala

North County party impresario Sami Bandak, whose second annual “Coming Together” gala benefited five child-oriented charities, arranged for the ballroom at the Sheraton Grande Torrey Pines to be elaborately and fancifully decorated as a sort of fantastic nursery for exceptionally fortunate children.

Mountains of giant building blocks supported clowns and 8-foot-tall Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls, and life-size representations of smiling storks and other friendly beasts hung from the ceiling. But for some among the crowd of 700 that jammed the room Saturday, the decor symbolized less a nursery than an incubator, since it was here, among the toys and teddy bears, that Bandak, an Escondido-based importer of Swedish baby carriages, made a formal appeal to a cross-section of the county’s movers and shakers to support his new career-training program for abused adolescents in foster care.

This project, unquestionably innovative and described by Bandak as the first of its kind anywhere, is called “Futures for Foster Adolescents” and seeks employment and career training for youths 16 to 18. The intention is to prepare youngsters, when they leave Juvenile Court jurisdiction and the foster care system, to be employable rather than susceptible to crime and drugs.

“Futures,” in its infancy but already serving several youths, has placed the teens with a variety of local firms, including the Torrey Pines Sheraton and the prestigious law practice of Gray, Cary, Ames & Frye.

As bait for his benefit, Bandak held out performances by the Platters, the Hollis Gentry jazz group and the reconstituted 5th Dimension, which after the dinner of crayfish bisque, salmon and chocolate tortillas, bore the audience off on the timeless wings of “Up, Up and Away.” Ticket sales, combined with the proceeds of an overly long but rather profitable auction of select travel packages--among them a luxury cruise up the Amazon and a Super Bowl XXVI package donated by former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle and his wife, Carrie--resulted in net earnings of about $150,000 for the five beneficiaries. The Child Abuse Prevention Foundation, the Make a Wish Foundation, Heart Strings, the San Diego YMCA and Escondido’s Palomar Family YMCA shared the take.

Carrie Rozelle served as honorary chairwoman and said she was particularly impressed by the type of support the event attracted.

“In New York and Washington, corporations buy gala tickets and make it easy for groups to make money,” she said. “But here, they’re bought by individuals, by people dealing from their own souls. I’m very impressed by that, and it’s the people here who make the evening really special.”

Bandak said that, although his immediate goal was earning a large sum for the beneficiaries, he regarded the introduction of his “Futures” project to the audience as equally important.

“This program will take kids from a future of crime to a future as normal people,” he said. “We already have six success stories, six young people in the program who can look forward to career paths rather than crime and drugs. And the charity isn’t just to the kids, but to ourselves, by helping kids to become happy, productive citizens. I’m excited about the future we can create for foster children, and all I hope is for the community to catch this disease of helping people. We will place 100 kids by next June, and I know we’ll go national.”

The event was an unusually elaborate party and drew a number of celebrity participants, including Scottish LPGA champion Pamela Wright, San Diego Padre Tony Gwynn (who added one of his custom “batting champion” Louisville Slugger bats to the 1992 All Star Game auction package), and joint masters of ceremonies Rolf Benirschke and Denise Yamada. The Platters, who performed briefly before dinner and returned after the 5th Dimension show, opened their act with the world premiere of a new song, “Miracles Still Happen,” written by La Jolla socialite Anne Armstrong.

Last year’s honorary chair, Marilyn Fletcher, attended with her husband, Kim; the guest list also included Jinx and Paul Ecke; Mary and Jack Goodall; Roslyn and Judge Napoleon Jones; Norma and Gary Hirsh; Richard Kaleh; Ann Winton; Marie Bandak; Ivory Johnson; Kathy and Dirk Broekema III; Fran and Ken Golden; County Supervisor Susan Golding; Jenny and Sid Craig; Shelley Lindstrom; Rosemary and William Logan; Jody Fletcher with Michael Finn; Rachel and Judson Grosvenor, and Kay and Bill Rippee.

SAN DIEGO--Santa, who later distributed a sack of candy canes to the grown-up, dressed-up boys and girls in the Neiman Marcus department store, leaped from a nook on the main floor, rang a bell fiercely and yelled, “Let the games begin!”

With that invitation, 400 pairs of variously shod feet--some in running shoes, some even in sequined running shoes--set out frantically on a search through two of the store’s three floors. The fifth “Catalogue Caper,” a treasure hunt founded some years ago as a benefit for the Whittier Institute but this year given for the San Diego Opera, equipped each guest on entry with a semi-cryptic clue that directed him to a box in one of the store’s numerous departments. Lucky guests pulled prize cards out of the boxes, while others yanked out new clues that sent them again running through the store. With more than 200 prizes, ranging from candied apples to couture outfits, nearly every couple won something.

The event worked well in two very different directions, earning a fair sum for the opera while showing off the Neiman Marcus wares to a crowd that, by the nature of the game, could not help but notice the furs, jewels and other potential Christmas gifts as it scurried past the displays. Christmas decorations went up just in time for the party, and the guests, instructed to wear holiday attire, seemed partial to seasonal red. At the entrance, carolers, fervent but a little forlorn-looking in the absence of snow, invoked ghosts of Christmases past while arriving guests scooped up hot chestnuts that were, indeed, roasting over an open fire.

Lee Maturo and Sandra Pay co-chaired the semi-aerobic gala and evidently put in a lot of time on the selling floor while readying the party.

“I’ve worked here from 9 to 5 the last four days, and the best part of it was that I lost three pounds,” said Lee Maturo, who may have relocated a couple of those pounds after browsing caterer John Baylin’s buffets of curry-sauteed oysters, poisson en papillote , leg of lamb and chocolate bread pudding.

Those who labored on the event did face certain temptations, said Pay, who pointed out the candy-and-gingerbread houses constructed as decorations for a couple of the buffets. “We gorged on gum drops, we put more in ourselves than on the houses, we were bad, but we had fun,” she said.

Three bands left no corner of the store quiet and invited dancing on both floors; the Benny Lagasse group held forth in women’s shoes, Tobacco Road took alternately jazzy and bluesy turns in men’s sportswear, and First Class rocked out in the second floor foyer. Since the party benefited the Opera, the entertainment also took occasional classical turns and featured several San Diego Opera singers in a formal cabaret.

The guest list included Dorothea and David Garfield, Diane and Jim Marinos, Lynn and Doug Mooney, Elsie and Frank Weston, Dian and Ray Peet, Judith Harris and Robert Singer, Carol and Harry Schrader, Cheryl and Ron Kendrick, Harriet and Richard Levi, Lee and Frank Goldberg, Rosemarie DeGregorio and Charles Pepitone, Audrey Geisel, Katy and Michael Dessent, Georgette and Jack McGregor, Valerie Preiss and Harry Cooper, Sandra and Jeff Schafer, and Alison and George Gildred.