Oprah Brings Glitz to Gala

Oprah Winfrey made a long-awaited debut in this luxury community Thursday on behalf of a charity for girls, and it took her back to her own girlhood memories of churning butter in Mississippi and listening to her grandmother’s hope that she might “work with some nice white family” someday.

“Wouldn’t she be happy to see me now?” Winfrey asked a crowd of 500 that included many of the Santa Barbara area’s leading philanthropists and civic leaders, paying tribute to the charity, Girls Inc., and to the day’s guest of honor, one of the world’s richest and most famous women and one of Montecito’s newer residents.

The charity world in Santa Barbara and the smaller community of Montecito to the south is a land of multimillionaires and celebrities -- even a touch or two of royalty. But the reception Thursday was a special day for all of them. This was their homage to a woman who qualifies to many as an American queen.

Ever since Winfrey purchased her $50-million Montecito estate two years ago, there has been a sort of high-stakes waiting game among the area’s top philanthropists. Just when would Winfrey, whose estimated worth is $900 million, begin to make some local moves? And who would be the beneficiary?

Winfrey, who has long focused her own charity work on helping young girls throughout the world, made it clear from the start that the problems of the needy will remain her top priority locally.

“I invited myself to this event because it was about girls,” she told reporters before lunch under a giant white tent on a sprawling estate lawn that raised more than $500,000 for the Santa Barbara chapter of Girls Inc., an organization that runs special after-school programs aimed at building self-esteem.

“This is my first coming-out gig here,” she added. “There are lots of other people here who can give to the zoo and the art museum and all the other worthy causes. I related to these girls. I am these girls.”

The fund-raising event was held at the plush estate of Bob and Marlene Veloz, who sold Winfrey her own nearby estate two years ago and who have remained friends.

Marlene Veloz, a co-chairwoman of Girls Inc., said she never considered asking Winfrey to become involved.

“It was a cute story, actually,” she said. “People started assuming that Oprah would be our speaker because we run together. I said no, and decided I had better stop the rumor. But a few weeks later, Oprah said, ‘I want to do this. Not only is it right up my alley, it’s parked in my driveway.’ ”

The Girls Inc. sites in Santa Barbara and Goleta serve 1,500 girls daily and 3,000 a year, said Monica Spear, the organization’s executive director.

Before her speech Thursday, Winfrey had visited the centers and met many of the girls. “This is a first for me,” Winfrey told the crowd. “I speak all over the world, but this is the very first time I have spoken in a community I call home. I love that we are a community that loves to share, to extend our hands to young women to infuse the world their energy.”

Winfrey, who was born in 1954 in Mississippi, said, “That state was the most racist state in the nation. That was their claim to fame.”

While growing up with her grandmother, she said, she often heard that a decent goal in life would be to find a “nice” white family to work for, one that might give out some hand-me-down clothes and didn’t mistreat the help.

She was churning butter one day and watching her grandmother wash clothes in a giant pot of steaming water.

“You better watch me, girl -- you’ll have to do this yourself someday,” Winfrey quoted her grandmother as saying.

“I thought, ‘No, Grandma, I won’t.’ I didn’t say it. But I thought it. If I had said it, she would have thumped me.”

Moving from those days to the present, Winfrey pointed to everybody in the audience in speaking of people who live blessed lives today. “I live in the space of the spirit, asking God each day how He can use me,” she said. “There is a calling in your life. Our lives are bigger than we realize. To those who have much that is given, much is expected.”

Winfrey said her great joy in life came last Christmas, when she spent a month in Africa giving out toys, soccer balls and shoes to children who had nothing. She said that she cherishes one letter of thanks as one of her greatest honors ever. “This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose,” Winfrey said. “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. Life is no brief candle for me. It is a kind of splendid torch.”