Jan 21, 2008

Gala sings praises of children's health initiative

By Adria Murray / Daily News Staff Writer

Hundreds of people filed in and took their seats in anticipation. The stage was black with an apple glowing at its center. And a man took the mic to announce something big. No, it wasn't the debut of the world's thinnest computer notebook. That happened Tuesday, several blocks away.

On Monday night, Broadway director Lee Roy Reamstook the stage of San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House to introduce an eager audience to the impressive entertainment lineup at the "Help Raise Healthy Children" black-tie gala, benefiting the Help Raise Healthy Children project.

Performers included Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Marvin Hamlischand more than a dozen jumping, flipping, leaping wiz kids from North Carolina's Bouncing Bulldogs rope skipping team.

Beginning the night across the street at City Hall's Rotunda, gala committee members and Bay Area philanthropists mingled at a cocktail reception attended by fundraiser extraordinaire and gala chairwoman Deborah Strobin, along with Hamlisch and Mayor Gavin Newsom (who made the long trek from upstairs to attend).

Newsom, an honorary gala committee member, was joined by his fiancee Jennifer Siebel in greeting guests, including former state Sen. Jackie Speier, whom Newsom congratulated and said he'd support in her congressional run. Committee members circling the reception included Michele Kirsch, O.J. Shansby, Jan Yanehiro, Barbara K. Brown, Sandy Mandel, Craig Card and Sherlee Rhine.

Trickled along the rotunda's grand staircase, musicians playing violins set an elegant tone as guests took their seats for the evening's gourmet dinner, prepared from locally sourced foods and created by Alice Waters of Berkeley's Chez Panisse.

Waters, the night's honoree, was recognized for her Chez Panisse Foundation and its work with Berkeley's public schools. Through her Edible Schoolyard and School Lunch Initiative, groundbreaking public school programs, Waters has taught children how to grow, cook and appreciate fresh foods.

"You've crystallized the meaning of 'healthy children' for America," Strobin said, as she presented Waters with her crystal apple award. (Apples were the central theme for the evening's children's health cause.)

Waters was thankful for the honor and said that "bringing children into a new relationship with food" has been the driving principle behind her 10-year initiative.

"For 30 years I've been thinking about the health of our children, and when I talked to people they would say 'We care, but we can't afford to change the way kids eat,'" Waters said. But faced with the rising rate of childhood obesity and diabetes, "We can't afford not to," Waters said.

Funds raised at the gala went to benefit children's nutrition and active living programs at San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center, Children's Hospital and Research Center Oakland and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

During the evening's benefit concert, Hamlisch regaled the audience with several of his popular compositions, including the Academy Award-winning song "The Way We Were" and the overture from Tony Award-winning "A Chorus Line."

About his song writing process, Hamlisch said, "Some people start with a melody, others start with the lyrics," then he joked, "I start with the title."

Hamlisch then asked audience members to shout out a song title they would like him to compose a tune for, and based on an audience member's suggestion he played piano and sang a song on the spot to a tune titled "If You Love a Child, You Save a Child."

Introduced by Hamlisch as "a superstar and a super lady," Hudson took the stage and began her rousing three-song set with Aretha Franklin's "Mockingbird."

"Maybe I'll play her in a movie someday," said the "American Idol" finalist about her idol.

But at this star-studded benefit concert, perhaps the most impressive of the evening's sights were the Bouncing Bulldog members who skipped rope while, among other things, sitting on the floor - literally jumping with their derrieres.

Now that's one kind of sitting on your keister everyone could get ... behind.

Adria Murray's society column appears every Sunday in the Daily News. Send event information to 324 High St., Palo Alto, CA 94301, or e-mail amurray@dailynewsgroup.com or call 650-327-9090, ext. 328.