Junior Auxiliary Dodges the Yuletide Ball

Here’s a group that knows better than to beat a theme to death.

So what if its annual fund-raiser is called the Candy Cane Ball? After 4 decades, you can get a little sick of peppermint sticks, already.

As it has for the last few years, the Junior Auxiliary of the Assistance League of Newport Beach bypassed the obvious in decor for its annual You-Know-What on Saturday. In fact, decorations for the dinner-dance at the Four Seasons Hotel were kept to a tasteful minimum--a few red and green balloons, auction and dining tables dressed in pine cones and plastic foam chips fixed to look like snow.

Just as unpretentious was auxiliary chairwoman Lissa Callaghan. Asked about her pastel, beaded gown, she giggled: “Oh, gosh, let’s not talk about that.”

What Callaghan wanted to talk about was the “very family-oriented” 35-member group she heads. “Everything we do is for children,” she said, listing volunteer work at a day-care center in Costa Mesa and assisting at a local dental clinic among members’ activities. Event chairwoman Char Rus and auction chairwoman Melinda Alvord talked about the group’s newest project, the national program “Kids on the Block,” which teaches elementary school children about learning and physical disabilities by using puppets. Auxiliary members give demonstrations with the puppets in third- and fourth-grade classes in the Newport-Mesa and Irvine Unified School Districts, Rus said.

Alvord proudly pointed to the two instructional puppets seated atop the auction tables. One of them, a battered little chap named Stephen Arthur, was up for “adoption.” For $350, Judy Bauer bought ceremonial custody rights to the puppet, whose blackened eye and stitched lip spoke volumes about child abuse.

Among ball committee members were Mary Pat Lucas, Cathy Grant, Kathryn Kalanz, Laurie Veitch, Nancy Sandford and Vicki Stump. Proceeds were estimated at $45,000.

And a partridge in a pear tree: Las Damas del Mar Auxiliary of the Children’s Home Society threw a “Country Christmas” party Friday that drew more than 300 people to the Dana Point Resort and raised about $30,000, according to Evie Sutherland, benefit chairwoman.

The highlight of the dinner dance came as guests nibbled raspberry-topped cheesecake. Sutherland--whose committee had presented her with a T-shirt that reads: “Am I in charge or what?”--drew raffle tickets for four elaborately decorated Christmas trees.

The trees were won by John Collinson, Joseph Andrews, Michael Reynolds and Stephen Nester.