‘Mallets and Martinis’ benefits former foster children

Sun-Sentinel

March 17, 2017

Enjoy an evening filled with drinks and croquet as Vita Nova hosts its inaugural “Mallets and Martinis.”

The evening will run from 6 to 10 p.m. April 1 at National Croquet Center, 700 Florida Mango Road, West Palm Beach. It will include culinary delights, beverages, auction items and action-packed crochet.

The event will raise funds for the residents of Vita Nova Village in West Palm Beach.

“‘Mallets and Martinis’ is going to be such an exciting event for a very worthy cause,” said Shannon Favole, co-chair. “All proceeds go directly to Vita Nova’s programs and services that help teens leaving foster care find safe places to live, succeed in school and obtain their first jobs.”

Each year approximately 26,000 young adults “age out” of foster care in the United States. Four years after aging out, 60 percent have been homeless, less than half have graduated from high school and more than 80 percent are unable to support themselves. That is where Vita Nova steps in with its programs and services.

Other “Mallets and Martinis” co-chairs are John Favole, and Sandy and Jose Coto.

The cost to attend is $125. A VIP table for 10 is $2,000.

For more information, visit www.malletsandmartinis.com.

Copyright © 2017, Sun Sentinel

He once lived behind a building. Now he’s getting a college degree.

 


Lanorris Lester isn’t sure about this.

Even as he sits here, tie perfectly tied, pants perfectly pressed, ready to tell his story, his smile’s a little nervous, his laugh genuine though still a little hesitant. But here, in the comfort of the place he used to live, he feels somewhat comfortable talking about it, that pain that led Lester here and the things he learned that helped him move on.

He knows that the words he says won’t just stay in this room. People are going to read them. They’re going to know about his situation, or at least the one he used to be in, and maybe that’s going to change how they see him. He wants to do it, wants to say those words, because their reality helped changed his life. Saved it, really. And he thinks that by saying those words, he might save someone else.

“I was homeless for about a month. It was terrible,” says Lester, who at 19 found himself living, for a month and a half, in the alley behind West Palm Beach’s Salvation Army, until he found his way to Vita Nova, a privately funded nonprofit organization that for the past decade has helped young people like him bridge the gap between adolescence and adulthood.

“They’re exposed to so much, see so much,” says Vita Nova CEO Jeff DeMario. “They should be focusing on school but they’re looking for how to eat. If Lanorris was my kid, what would I want for him? What would be his options?”

Many of the young adults who’ve lived at Vita Nova’s residences since 2006, and been through its training and life skills preparation programs, aged out of foster care with Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF), never finding that “forever home” with loving, permanent parents.

Others, like Lester, now 28, simply needed somewhere to go, having spent the period where other kids are choosing colleges and picking out their first cars worrying about what they’re going to eat. Where they’ll sleep.

Vita Nova, based in West Palm Beach, provides help with education and employment, but also with skills like cooking and cleaning, and money management. Lester says such advice was rare “growing up in the ‘hood, when your role models were drug dealers. The guidance was good, to get a different perspective. A lot of people are doing good in here. It was a place to get to know each other, because we all have homelessness in common. We come from the same experience. “

Most of the residents at Vita Nova, which has the capacity for 28 residents in 12 three-bedroom apartment units, are between 18 and 25, DeMario says. The issues of youth homelessness are particularly striking in a place like Palm Beach County where the average one-bedroom rental home costs nearly $1,300 a month, and even the financially secure “experience the instability of housing prices” and a struggle to come up with necessary deposits and credit.

The situation is even more crucial for kids like the ones Vita Nova serves, about 60 percent of whom are former foster kids. In 2014, Florida gave kids in foster care the option of remaining in care until the age of 21, but for many kids with possible tenuous community connections, little experience supporting themselves and few people to coach them through that, even that extension isn’t enough to give them what they need to be self-sufficient.

Covenant House, a national organization dedicated to helping homeless youth, estimates that 20,000 kids age out of foster care in the United States every year, and that an estimated 40 percent of them become homeless.

He adds that there is a growing issue with the significant population of homeless youth who identify as LGBT, which DeMario says is about 40 percent of that population, who “have come out to their parents and are now homeless.”

“A lot of older foster kids just become homeless. The numbers are staggering,” he says. “They were never taken care of or they grew out of the system.”

One of those former foster kids is 18-year-old Ari Morales, who has been at Vita Nova for about seven months. He’d gone into the system when he was 17, because “it wasn’t working” with the relative he was living with. Morales found himself in a group home at the age of 17, where he stayed for about eight months. He was referred to Vita Nova by case workers as he was preparing to head out on his own.

“I wasn’t sure what I was going to do,” he says, “but I wanted to do something with myself. I graduated high school after I got here. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if not for here. This has helped me on a path that was different than I would have been on.”

Morales’ story is familiar to Lanorris Lester. After leaving his mother’s home because of issues there, Lester lived with a series of relatives until he was 19, not long after graduating from high school, which he’d struggled with because of the precariousness of his housing. He stayed out of trouble, but things weren’t going well.

His final living situation ended with a dispute that resulted in “them kicking me out,” leaving him with nowhere to go and sending him to that space behind the Salvation Army. DeMario says it’s a common place for young homeless kids who are still trying to maintain some normalcy, being able to use the showers and change clothes inside.

Lester lived behind the Salvation Army until doing so made him so sick “that I got hospitalized.” With nowhere to go, he got in touch with someone who had also been through Vita Nova’s program and told him “that they helped folks with housing and jobs, and if you needed food.”

Everyone that Vita Nova helps doesn’t immediately move in. Elizabeth Smiley, director of Vita Nova’s OASIS (Outreach, Advocacy and Support for Independence and Self-Sufficiency) program, says that for some kids who’ve been on the street, trust is hard to come by, surviving in a world where “their first instinct is to believe they’re being used. That’s what they know. Sometimes they just come to take a shower or get something to eat. They’re not used to having a home life.”

While transitioning back into a structured situation is difficult for some formerly homeless youth, for Lester, the rules “made it easier. That was what I needed. Some people fight help, because it can come back to bite you. I learned that early. But it was easier to do this that way.”

He says that he thrived in the structure and support of Vita Nova, enrolling in classes at Palm Beach State College and “getting comfortable” with the idea of being on his own. When he eventually left about a year and a half later, he moved in initially with a girlfriend, but learned the hard way that nothing is in your name, “when the relationship goes, the house goes,” says the now-wiser Lester.

But that’s where “the skills that they taught me” kicked in and the now self-sufficient Lester, who has done everything from working as a bellman at the former Ritz-Carlton hotel in Manalapan (now the Eau Palm Beach), and parking cars as a valet on Clematis Street, picked himself up and kept moving. He’s currently finishing his degree at Palm Beach State.

“You can always go through a phase when you feel sorry for yourself,” he says. “But now I know you better put something in your name.”

That’s the kind of advice he’s been able to impart to current residents at Vita Nova, like Morales, to whom he’s a mentor. Sometimes they talk, and sometimes “we just work out” and say nothing at all, Morales says. “He’s a good person to be around,” Ari says of his friend. “I never had a mentor before. He keeps me staying focused.”

“I don’t try to make them feel like they’re talking to an adult,” Lester explains. “They can get comfortable and tell me stuff,” he says.

DeMario says that the average resident stays around two or three years, gaining support and skills to help them move on and become self-sufficient. Some will move into their own places, or in with friends, or get married – “We have some who leave here and move in together,” he says. “If you can reach one person, it makes the job worth it.”

Now living in West Palm Beach with his sister as his roommate, Lester says he’s grateful to Vita Nova, not only for shelter, but for the confidence to know that he’s going to be OK.

“The decisions you make now are important,” he says. “It’s crunch time. I’m not saying I’m different than other people but I’m making better decisions. I know the path to take. I’ve been there, at a place that’s much deeper.”

And he doesn’t regret telling people like Morales- and now all of you – what he’s been through, if maybe it helps them not be there in the first place.

“I look at him and he’s like a little brother,” he says. “It’s heartwarming to be able to help him.”

 

Hero Dog Awards luncheon honors heroic hounds

Sun-Sentinel

American Humane, the country’s first national humane organization, will celebrate these heroic hounds during the seventh annual “Hero Dog Awards Gala Luncheon.” The event will take place at Mar-a-Lago Club on March 8.

“For thousands of years, mankind has had a special relationship with dogs, and the American Humane Hero Dog Awards are our way of honoring the best of our best friends,” said Dr. Robin Ganzert, president and CEO of American Humane. “The ‘Hero Dogs Award Gala Luncheon’ is an inspiring afternoon when we offer our thanks to so many of our greatest heroes — from service dogs who improve our lives to military hero dogs who fight alongside our troops and defend our freedom.”

Dogs that will be in attendance to be honored include:

•Hooch was terribly abused, but his spirit of forgiveness led him to serve as a therapy dog for abused, autistic and special needs children. He uses great gentleness, patience and kindness to help them. For his heroism and good works, Hooch was named the American Hero Dog of 2016.

•Mango, a paralyzed rescue who was homeless, was hit by a car and scheduled for euthanasia. Now, with the help of a tiny wheelchair, she inspires disabled veterans with physical disabilities. For her work and bravery, Mango was named the nation’s Therapy Dog of the Year.

•Hook, the country’s Hearing Dog of the Year, is a 12-pound, 10-year-old dog who goes almost everywhere with his handler. Three years ago they were in downtown Sacramento crossing a street when a train came. Hook pulled the handler from the track, and the train missed her by a foot.

•Gander was rescued from a Colorado shelter and trained as a service dog. He went on to save the life of a veteran suffering from invisible but deadly wounds of war. He travels the United States to teach people about preventing veteran suicide and has raised $1 million for veterans’ groups, veterans, service dog charities and individuals in need. For his lifesaving work, Gander was named Service Dog of the Year.

In addition to the four-footed stars, “American Idol” star Katharine McPhee will be in attendance, along with the Alex Donner Orchestra. Beth Stern and James Denton are event co-hosts.

The cost to attend “Hero Dog Awards Gala Luncheon” is $325.

For more information about the luncheon and other animal-themed community events, call Mari Harner at 561-537-5887 or marih@americanhumane.org.

Kann foundation’s Eclipse 2017 a fashionable event

By PALM BEACH DAILY NEWS

February 25, 2017

Fashion designer Dennis Basso showed his Spring Summer 2017 Collection Feb. 6 at the 18th annual Richard David Kann Melanoma Foundation’s luncheon “Eclipse 2017” at The Breakers.

Merrill Fisher Gottesman was chairwoman, while honorary Chairs were Herme de Wyman Miro, Ari Rifkin, Arlette Gordon, Rhoda Chase, Joan G. Rubin and Marianne Gold.

Dennis Basso with Merrill Gottesman. Photo by Capehart

Dennis Basso with Merrill Gottesman. Photo by Capehart

 

That morning, the foundation hosted the RDK Melanoma Golf Classic at The Breakers Ocean Course; that event was chaired by Charles Gottesman with co-chairs Dr. Larry Katzen and Harvey Gold. Baseball Hall of Famer and melanoma survivor Mike Schmidt played in the event.

The Richard David Kann Melanoma Foundation has been working for more than 20 years to educate students grades K-12 on the importance of sun-safe behavior and raise awareness about the life-saving techniques for early detection of skin cancer, especially melanoma, its deadliest form. Debbie Kann Schwarzberg is president and founder of the organization.

Carolina Herrera unveils classy looks for spring at Hospice Evening

By Shannon Donnelly – Daily News Society Editor 

Monday, February 13, 2017


Leave it to Carolina Herrera to make denim and gingham glamorous.

The stalwart of American women’s fashion showed her spring 2017 collection at the Flagler Museum on Jan. 20 at the annual Hospice Evening 2017.

It was a study in black and white — a perfect match for the black-and-white color scheme of the gala — with a sprinkling of peach, pink and nude as an homage to spring.

Then there was the blue. A gown comprising curls of soft blue denim moved across the runway like waves over the surface of the ocean. A denim midi dress was accented with bow ties on the sleeve and a smooth drop.

The standouts were a black-and-white gingham gown, drawn from one of her own favorite garments of years past, and and her trademark, the classic shirtdress ballgown, neatly fitted at the top and flowing into an sea of voluminous swirls below the waist. And pockets!

Fashion show and golf raise funds for Melanoma foundation

Sun-Sentinel

January 26, 2017

Get ready for a luncheon and fashion show to benefit The Richard David Kann Melanoma Foundation.

The 18th annual “Eclipse 2017” will take place Feb. 6 at The Breakers Palm Beach. American fashion designer Dennis Basso will present highlights from his Spring 2017 collection, as seen in his New York Fashion Show.

The event begins at 10:30 a.m. with a silent auction, followed by a gourmet lunch and the show at noon.

Merrill Fisher Gottesman will serve as event chair, with co-chairs Hermé de Wyman Miro, Ari Rifkin, Arlette Gordon, Rhoda Chase, Joan G. Rubin and Marianne Gold.

Tickets to “Eclipse 2017,” formerly known as “SunSational,” are $325. Profits will support the expansion of the organization’s programs and resources, thus furthering the mission of education involving skin cancers.

Before “Eclipse 2017,” the organization will host its “RDK Melanoma Golf Classic.” The sold-out tournament begins at 7 a.m., with an 8 a.m. shotgun start, at The Breakers Ocean Course.

Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt will be the guest host. Schmidt, a melanoma survivor, education advocate and Palm Beach County resident, spreads the important message of sun safety locally and nationally.

“I spent my life in the sun without protection,” he said. “I’m currently a melanoma survivor because I see my dermatologist regularly.”

The legendary Jack Nicklaus will be the golf luncheon’s celebrity guest.

This year’s event chair is Charles Gottesman. Co-chairs are Dr. Lawrence Katzen and Harvey Gold.

For more information about the foundation, visit www.melanomafoundation.com. For information about “Eclipse 2017,” visit www.melanomaluncheon.com. For either, call 561-655-9655.

Copyright © 2017, Sun Sentinel