Guests Earn Their Spurs at Benefit

Slow, slow, quick-quick, slow . . .

The slow steps came easily to the 300 guests learning how to dance Western-style at the “How the West Was Won” benefit at Fashion Island in Newport Beach on Saturday night.

But forget the quick-quicks. Guests were so full of Texas-style fajitas, black beans and green rice they could hardly move, much less move in a hurry.

“I’m determined to dance tonight,” said pregnant party-goer Tina Schafnitz, resplendent in a turquoise hat, chemise and jewelry. “The baby is due in six weeks. Tonight is my last hurrah.”

By the time the gala staged by the Islanders had ended, Schafnitz and her husband, Matt, had two-stepped and “tush-pushed” until their fancy boots ached.

Proceeds from the $85-per-person gala will go toward the expansion of the Grace Hoag Cottage, a Costa Mesa day-care center run by the Assistance League of Newport-Mesa. One hundred preschool-age children of low-income parents use the facility.

“We have 600 children on our waiting list,” said Marie-France Lefebvre, coordinator of special events for the league. “We want to add three new classrooms to the center so that we can serve 50 more.”

The center is used mostly by single mothers. “They must either be working or full-time students,” Lefebvre said. “In other words, we help them if they are helping themselves.” Fees for child care are based on each parent’s ability to pay.

Annually, the Islanders--a 117-strong group of Newport Beach women who like to do their socializing on behalf of charity--stages a benefit in Fashion Island for children. Last year’s Caribbean-style bash netted $25,000 for the Juvenile Connection Program.

“We hope to make between $30,000 and $40,000 tonight,” said Adrienne Brennan, president of the Islanders. She attended the event with Michael Casey of Connecticut.

When Brennan, a former police officer, visited the day-care center with her friend, Marie-France Lefebvre, she could see the value it had for children of low-income families.

“When you take children who might otherwise be at home--maybe without supervision--and put them in a caring, stimulating environment, you’ve got a winner,” she said.

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Guests, who were invited to wear cowboy or Indian-inspired clothing, entered the Neiman-Marcus courtyard under a lighted horseshoe arch. On view: wagons piled with hay and tortilla chips and guacamole, life-size faux horses and dining tables covered with lemon-yellow cloths and turquoise burlap overlays.

“See that huge old wagon wheel on that stack of hay over there?” said Diana Bromily, decorations chairwoman. “I put it up there myself. It’s Styrofoam and it weighs about a pound!”

Nearby, chef Geronimo Lopez, 29, a supervisor with El Torito restaurant, held court at a mesquite barbecue, whipping up chicken and skirt-steak fajitas.

“This meat is the real thing--the most tender part of the New York steak,” said Lopez, who came to California from Tijuana eight years ago. (“I was a chef from the time I was 12 in my parents’ restaurant there,” he said.)

The meat is marinated in a combination of soy sauce, orange juice and achiote chili paste (from Yucatan), Lopez said. What makes the rice green? “Cilantro and pasilla chilies.” Before queuing up for the buffet, guests watched a fashion show staged by Fashion Island merchants.

“Being Fashion Island-based, we get a lot of support from the merchants and hotels here,” explained Bromily, who wore a striped Southwestern-style skirt by Laguna Beach designer D.N. Evans (Evans, whose once ultra-vogue Laguna Beach and Los Angeles shops have folded, is planning to open a vintage clothing store in Laguna Beach, Bromily said.)

Originally, the Islanders was formed to help build a clientele at Fashion Island’s now-defunct Rex restaurant. “We were going to have our committee lunches there,” said Mary Lou Hopkins-Hornsby, who founded the Islanders with Mary Ann Wells.

“But they closed on us. So, now we have our lunches in various Fashion Island spots and always have our benefits here.”

Also among guests: Event chairwoman Patty Edwards with her husband, Jim (of Edwards Theaters); co-chairwoman Ann Stern with her husband, Wolf; Paul and Virginia Knott Bender; Dawn and Lee Wood (Dawn, who is from Dallas, was stunning in a siren-red fringed suit; he sported a black Stetson hat); Cerise and Larry Feeley; Mimi and Tom Crosson; Darleen and Bill Manclark; Lon Wells; Scott Hornsby; Orange County Supervisor Harriett Wieder (in a vintage turquoise squash-blossom necklace) with her husband, Irv; and Gail and Ron Soderling.

Committee members also included: Seanne Contursi, Kitty Leslie, Kathryn Wright, Sue Hook, Barbara Harris, Tita Loza, Gloria Osbrink, Gypsy Pulliam and Christine Rhoades.