Rotary’s Kaleidoscope benefits Evans Home
By Stephanie M. Mangino
The Winchester Star, March 23rd, 2010
Kaleidoscope 2010
Winchester — Money raised at the Rotary Club of Winchester’s annual Kaleidoscope Gala usually goes toward bricks-and-mortar projects.
But this year, the Saturday fundraiser will benefit an effort to give more children a place to live within an existing home.
Kaleidoscope, which is in its ninth year, has raised up to $50,000 annually for area nonprofits, said Irvin Shendow, a club member since 1973 and assistant chairman of the Kaleidoscope event, which will be held at Shenandoah Valley Golf Club.
The Henry and William Evans Home for Children hopes the night will raise as much as possible, toward the establishment of a Rotary Scholarship that would allow the home to care for homeless children, said its executive director Marc Jaccard, who is also a Rotary member.
As parents are getting help, he said, they could treat the home as sort of a boarding school for their children, but one they can use free of charge. Parents could visit their children and retain all parental rights.
The home believes it would cost $15,000 to $18,000 to care for one child for a year.
That’s less than the $25,000 top prize that will be given away at Saturday’s event, which has already generated ticket sales that Shendow called “very heartening.”
Tickets are $200 for individuals and $400 for couples, and people who attend the black-tie optional gala can also bid on a wide variety of silent auction items, such as vacations at villas in Jamaica and charter aircraft flights.
The night is a lot of fun and features a great meal, Shendow added, and benefits a local cause.
Over the years, beneficiaries have included the Youth Development Center, Fremont Street Nursery, and the Congregational-Community Action Project.
In all, the Winchester Rotary has distributed approximately $350,000, Shendow said. “We’re proud of that.”
And such money can help a great deal at the Evans Home.
The scholarship idea is one the home has considered for a while, Jaccard said, but “it all comes back to the funding.” Most children who live at the Evans Home cannot live in their original or foster or adoptive homes, and some social services funds are attached to their stays there.
Eight children currently live at the home on East Leicester Street, Jaccard said. It is licensed to care for up to 20 children, but its program basically maxes out at about 16 young people.