Summertime, and the Giving Is Easy

In summer, the social circuit moves at a more languid pace than in other seasons, but plenty of people broke a sweat in July raising money for a variety of good causes. Among them:

Lofti Mansouri, general director of the San Francisco Opera, was honored as the 2000 Distinguished Alumnus (tenor, 1957) by the Music Academy of the West on July 1. Carol Burnett, his friend since they were UCLA students in the 1950s, made the presentation at the opening concert of the academy’s Summer Festival 2000 in Santa Barbara. Bernice A. Geiringer sponsored the concert, which netted $22,000 for the 2001 Alumni Program Fellowship. . . .

The California Community Foundation has awarded nearly a million dollars to eight nonprofit organizations in the greater Los Angeles area. The largest of the grants, which ranged from $25,000 to $400,000, went to California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, to help build and endow the Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theater now under construction adjacent to the Disney Concert Hall in downtown L.A. . . .

Friends of the Family raised more than $250,000 at its fourth annual “Families Matter” benefit on July 5 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. More than 700 attended the event honoring Judy Jablonsky (publisher of LA Weekly and OC Weekly) with the 2000 Family Friend of the Year Award.

Demetra and Mehmet Mustafoglu’s beautiful Beverly Hills home was the setting for a benefit dinner-dance July 8 sponsored by the Palace Arts Foundation to support “Palace of Gold & Light: Treasures from the Topkapi, Istanbul, “ exhibit on view at the San Diego Museum of Art through Sept. 24.

The 17th annual Golden Mallet Invitational Polo Tournament sponsored by the Assistance League of Southern California Pre-School Auxiliary on July 15 at the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club raised more than $50,000.

Project Angel Food’s Angel Awards 2000 benefit on July 15 honoring Anthony Edwards of “ER” and his wife, Jeanine Lobell; Jeanne White-Ginder (mother of Ryan White, who died in 1990) and the Buehler Family Foundation netted more than $400,000. . . .

Well, something good came of it after all: On July 15, Darva Conger, the un-bartered bride who rejected her millionaire husband after their bizarre marriage on national television, auctioned her diamond wedding ring and her 2000 Isuzu Trooper on the Internet to benefit Easter Seals and United Cerebral Palsy Fund. Conger’s brother Danny died of cerebral palsy earlier this year. . . .

The third annual Scott Hamilton Circle of Friends Golf Tournament held July 16 and 17 at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks raised more than $100,000 to aid Target House at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. . . .

On July 19, supporters of the California Science Center were treated to an evening of magic and a preview of the center’s newest exhibit, “Magic: Science of Illusion,” free to the public through Feb. 28. . . .

Fourteen of L.A.’s premier chefs dispensed their specialties at the American Cancer Society’s 16th annual California Spirit Gourmet Gala on July 16 at Ken Roberts’ Brentwood estate. The event, chaired by Christopher Swope and hosted by chef Wolfgang Puck, his wife, Barbara Lazaroff, and Paramount’s Sherry Lansing, raised nearly $600,000. . . .

The benefit luncheon presented by Mervyn’s California on July 20 at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood raised $50,000 for the Women’s Sports Foundation. Mervyn’s donated an additional $302,000 to the foundation’s scholarship fund for women athletes. . . .

Libby Cigliano and Josephine Nizetich, who co-chaired Vista Pacifica, a dinner-dance to benefit the Little Sisters of the Poor held at Ocean Trails Golf Course in Palos Verdes, reported that the event netted a record $207,000.

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Patt Diroll’s column is published Tuesdays. She can be reached at pattdiroll@earthlink.net.