Donning the white dress

Alicia Robinson

Being a debutante isn’t all white gloves and formal dances.

Those are the fun parts that have to be earned through hard work.

Just ask Mary Pat Lucas. Or her mother. Or her daughter.

Being presented as a debutante is a final rite of passage for

girls in the National Charity League, but those who belong to the

organization say its most important parts are the philanthropy and

volunteer work they do to get to be a debutante. Founded in 1925 in

Los Angeles as the Charity League, the organization is devoted to

helping the community and fostering mother-daughter relationships.

This year’s group of debutantes includes two third-generation

members involved with the league’s local chapter. Lucas and her

mother, Kathy Rolfes, worked with the National Charity League when

Lucas was a girl. Kamdyn Lucas, Mary Pat’s daughter, just finished

her service as a “Ticktocker” and got to don the white dress of a

debutante.

Joyce Ukropina is the middle link in her family’s chain of

National Charity League women. Her mother, Nancy Caldwell, was a

“patroness” when Ukropina was presented in 1971. Joyce’s daughter,

Jillian Ukropina, made her debut in November.

“I started as a Ticktocker when I was in seventh grade,” Mary Pat

Lucas said. “That was a long time ago.”

Back then, she worked as a candy-striper at the local hospital,

did activities with deaf children at the former John Tracy Clinic in

Costa Mesa and spent time with folks at the senior center.

“I think probably the biggest thing I learned was how wonderful it

was to help other people,” Mary Pat Lucas said. “Not only did it make

them happy, but to know that I helped someone have a better day in

some way, made their life better for them.”

Joyce Ukropina also worked at the John Tracy Clinic and raised

money for charity in the Ticktocker thrift shop. Being able to help a

variety of causes appealed to her, she said.

“The neat thing about National Charity League is it doesn’t just

work with one charity,” she said.

Caldwell said she was drawn to the organization by its values and

the mother-daughter involvement.

“Having two daughters, I just couldn’t think of a better way to

watch my girls grow from being a little girl into womanhood,” she

said. “What it has really shown my daughters and now my granddaughter

is to be involved in the community and giving of yourself.”

Both Mary Pat Lucas and Joyce Ukropina said they suggested the

National Charity League to their daughters, who took the idea and ran

with it.

“[Jillian] got involved primarily because I had sought the

involvement out myself,” Joyce Ukropina said. “I had such an

incredible experience going through this with my mother and my

sister, I knew this was something I wanted to go through with my

daughter.”

The latest generation of Ticktockers has worked with local soup

kitchens, Share Our Selves, the Environmental Nature Center and other

groups. Kamdyn Lucas said the best part of her volunteer work was

helping children.

“A lot of my service hours that I did were with kids, and my

favorite thing is to work with kids and be with kids and make them

happy,” she said.

The community has changed since Mary Pat Lucas and Joyce Ukropina

first got involved with the National Charity League, and their

perspectives on the group have changed also, they said.

“Probably as a child I understood that there was a need, but now

as an adult I can see how much need there really is,” Mary Pat Lucas

said.

As the community has grown, so has the need for the work the

league does, she said.

At long last, after all the volunteer work -- Mary Pat Lucas said

Kamdyn contributed 748 hours of time to the community -- came that

fairy tale moment, when the girls were presented as debutantes at a

ball held by the Newport Beach chapter of the National Charity

League.

Seeing Kamdyn presented in November was an unforgettable moment

for Mary Pat Lucas, herself a National Charity League debutante in

1974.

“That’s one you can’t even describe,” she said. “I expected it to

be wonderful, but seeing her up there and the night as a whole so

exceeded my expectations. It was absolutely a magical night. It made

me see how grown up my daughter was and how she’s moved on to the

next stage of life.”

Joyce Ukropina cried when she saw her daughter Jillian presented

in a white dress.

“It was an incredible culmination of a lot of hard, hard work that

she had done,” Joyce Ukropina said.

Her daughter is now a student at USC who uses her spare time to

tutor inner-city students in Los Angeles.

Kamdyn Lucas said the ball was old-fashioned, but that didn’t

bother her.

“I was so excited,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for it since the

sixth grade. ... It was awesome wearing the whole get-up.”

She’s kept up her volunteer work and now acts as service

chairwoman for her sorority at the University of Arizona. While she

does expect to encourage her daughters, if she has any, to

participate in the National Charity League, her decision to go

through it wasn’t influenced by family tradition, she said.

“I could have stopped a while ago if I didn’t want to do it

anymore, but I liked it so much and I thought it was just a great

experience, so I wanted to keep doing it,” she said.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at alicia.robinson@

latimes.com.