Fox entertainment reporter Lisa Joyner hosted Para...

Fox entertainment reporter Lisa Joyner hosted Para Los Nin~os’ Los Amigos Council’s third annual Holiday Soiree on Dec. 11 at Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica. The party was attended by about 600 people and included music, dancing, food and a silent auction. About $7,000 was raised to support Para Los Nin~os’ programs for children and families living in poverty in Los Angeles. The Los Amigos Council is a group of young professionals who support Para Los Nin~os through fund-raising and community outreach activities. Para Los Nin~os serves more than 800 children and more than 2,000 families each year.

* More than 500 guests attended Heart of Los Angeles Youth’s fifth annual Holiday of the Heart and raised $160,000 for at-risk youths. The gala, held at the Regal Biltmore Hotel on Dec. 11, included a dinner, a silent auction, and music performed by young musicians in Heart of Los Angeles Youth’s music education program as well as by nationally recognized musicians Linda and Larry Hart and Broadway talent Jason Graae. Ruben Zacarias, superintendent of the L.A. Unified School District, received the Heart of L.A. Award for his commitment to youth. TV personality Shadoe Stevens emceed the evening. Heart of Los Angeles Youth is an arts, education, athletics and job-placement program for more than 850 youths in the Rampart district near downtown L.A. The event’s biggest benefactors included Maria and Michael Rademacher of Michael Rademacher Productions and Susanna and Charlie Midnight of the Dan Hartman Music Foundation.

* “Playing by Heart” cast members Sean Connery, Dennis Quaid, Gillian Anderson, Angelina Jolie (with father Jon Voight), Anthony Edwards, Jay Mohr and Madeleine Stowe and Miramax’s Harvey Weinstein attended the film’s premiere Dec. 10 and raised more than $90,000 for the Ocean Park Community Center’s Access Center. The Santa Monica-based project provides emergency services to the homeless and working poor in west Los Angeles County. More than 1,000 guests attended the screening and reception at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills. The benefit was organized by Nigel Sinclair, an executive producer on the film and president of Intermedia Films, who is a member of the Ocean Park Community Center’s board. The center provides food, clothing, emergency shelter, crisis intervention and assistance with employment and social services for its clients.

* The JBB Allstars raised $20,000 for Jewish Big Brothers / Camp Max Straus at its second annual Hanukkah party Dec. 10 at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. The candle-lighting celebration will benefit the agency’s programs and services and its nondenominational, multiracial summer camp in Glendale for at-risk kids.

* Sav-on Drugs donated $50,000 to LA’s BEST After School Enrichment Program Dec. 2 for the fourth consecutive year. LA’s BEST, or Better Educated Students for Tomorrow, provides after-school activities for 5,000 children ages 5 to 12 in 24 Los Angeles public schools. The program provides a safe place and academic support to children who might otherwise go unsupervised after school. LA’s BEST is a partnership of the city of Los Angeles, the L.A. Unified School District, state and federal government and the private sector.

* The Harbor-UCLA Research and Education Institute in Torrance received a $1.5-million-dollar donation Dec. 17 from Drs. Steve C.K. and Milly L. Liu. The gift, the largest ever for the institute, will be used to recruit new researchers to the departments of medicine, pediatrics and others. Dr. Steve Liu is a cardiologist and served as chief of the division of cardiology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Little Company of Mary Hospital, and has conducted research for the institute for more than 20 years. He is also a clinical professor or cardiology at the UCLA School of Medicine and a member of the board of governors of the UCLA Foundation. Dr. Milly L. Liu is a pediatrician who practiced in the South Bay until retiring in the early 1990s. She is a clinical professor of pediatrics of the UCLA School of Medicine and a member of its board of visitors.

* The Juniors of Social Service raised more than $100,000 for the Sisters of Social Service at its 63rd annual Candlelight Ball Dec. 12. More than 350 attended the Southern-themed “Moonlight and Magnolias” ball at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, which included a raffle for a Hawaiian holiday and silent and live auctions, as well as music by the Jay Sterling Orchestra. The funds will be used to support Regis House, a nonsectarian community center in West Los Angeles establish by the Sisters of Social Service. Regis House provides services to low-income families, including preschool programs, English classes, parenting classes, a food pantry, senior citizen programs, counseling, teen activities, after-school programs and a summer camp.

--HEATHER STEWART JORDEN

Has your group held a charity fund-raiser recently? Let us know about it. We will report on selected local benefit projects and events. Please tell us about your organization and the charity you support, how much you raised, how the charity uses your gift and the details of your event--what, when and where. Send a letter or news release to Charity Scorecard, Southern California Living, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or fax to (213) 237-4888. Submissions must reach us no more than two weeks after the benefit.