Having gotten showbiz out of its system temporarily, with its “It’s a Matter of Taste” annual musical-comedy revue, the Woman’s Club of Evanston is ready to move on to a more traditional charitable event with its annual Spring Benefit.
The formal dinner-dance will be held April 23 at the Saddle & Cycle Club in Chicago, with the newly opened Curt’s Café South as its sole beneficiary.
“It’s a Matter of Taste,” which benefited “Family Matters,” an after-school program in the North of Howard area, has only been over five weeks or so, so you might imagine the ladies of the WCE might be evented-out for the time being. Yet, that’s not so, said Jackie Mack, Spring Benefit co-chair with Evanston’s Holly Brady. In fact, it’s never been so, though the club’s two major annual fundraising events have always been held nearly back-to-back.
“It really hasn’t been an issue,” Mack said. “People look forward to the show each year, but they look forward to the Spring Benefit just as much. Possibly because it’s usually some sort of celebration. It’s very festive. And the beneficiaries are carefully vetted every year so people will be excited about helping each organization.”
The staff and volunteers of Curt’s Café South, the breakfast-and-lunch café that opened March 22, 2015, at 1813 Dempster St., have been working hand-in-hand with the Spring Benefit committee. According to Mack, roughly half the people in attendance will be connected to Curt’s South — sister organization to Curt’s North, which has been teaching food-service and life skills to young at-risk men for the past three years.
The program has been successfully keeping its trainees out of the juvenile justice system, where 82 percent typically return because they have no job training or options. Curt’s South, also founded by its Executive Director Susan Trieschmann of Evanston, is devoted to providing the same service to at-risk girls and teen mothers.
Trieschmann, who was director of catering at the Pump Room before launching the upscale catering business Food For Thought Enterprise, is also an original member of Restorative Justice Evanston, was also asked to give a Ted Talk last year on her work.
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This year’s Spring Benefit has an ecological theme, complete with e-vites instead of paper invitations, plus local organic food and local organic wine for the dinner. Evanston’s Cultivate Urban Rain Forest and Gallery, which specializes in terrariums, has donated a terrarium, plus a designer to help create the table centerpieces.
Fundraisers begin with a paper-bag pull with small gifts for $20 a pick.Live auction items feature vacation-home getaways including a three-day weekend at 16-bedroom mansion in Sheboygan, a week in a Sun Valley condo, a four-day golfing weekend in Galena, plus four behind-home-plate Cubs tickets and a Road Rally and dinner party for 24. And a paddle-raise auction will follow a speech by Trieschmann, raising money for specific needs ranging from housing and diapers to support for a full-time counselor.
“We’re really excited to be working with and for Curt’s Café South,” Mack said. “It’s such a great program. They teach their young women life skills and job skills (women in the program earn a GED and a food-service certificate), help them write a resume and prepare them for interviews. They teach them budgeting and parenting skills and help them find housing. They want to make sure these girls have a good base and a good start for their lives.”
The Woman’s Club of Evanston’s annual Spring Benefit will begin at 6:30 p.m. April 23 in the Saddle & Cycle Club, 900 W. Foster Ave., Chicago. Tickets range from $150 to $300 or $1,500 for tables of 10, and are available at tinyurl.com/cultivateforcurts. For more information, call 847-475-3800 or see www.wcofe.org