Child’s Play for Charity

From child’s play can come big results.

Take, for instance, Project Playhouse, an annual charity event where Southland home builders create fanciful children’s playhouses that are sold at auction to help the estimated 12,000 homeless in Orange County.

In its two years of existence, Project Playhouse has auctioned off nine playhouses to raise $185,000 for HomeAid, the Orange County building industry’s nonprofit program that builds and renovates shelters for the transitionally homeless. Last year’s playhouses sold for prices ranging from $2,500 to $16,000, raising $100,000.

And this year, nine more architect-designed delights will be sold to the highest bidders at auction Saturday, Nov. 12, near the Hard Rock Cafe at the Fashion Island shopping center in Newport Beach.

Festivities will begin at 5 p.m. with a party at the Hard Rock Cafe. Tickets to the event are $15, including dinner. Children 12 and under are free.

The houses, including Mickey Mouse’s Toontown house, a thatched cottage, a lighthouse and a fairy-tale castle, are on display now at Fashion Island. One of the playhouses will be given away in an opportunity drawing Nov. 12. Tickets are $1 and are available at the center.

The Project Playhouse ’94 builders and their creations are Centex Homes (English thatched cottage), California Pacific Homes (California bungalow), Fieldstone Co. (an Eastern Seaboard-themed cottage), Greystone Homes (Victorian house), Presley of Southern California (Mickey Mouse House), TriMark Development Co. (Hard Rock Cafe, as a jukebox), Warmington Homes (lighthouse), Chicago Title/J.M. Peters (castle) and Telikos Corp. (storybook cottage).

For more information on Project Playhouse ‘94, call (800) 414-SALE.