Evening Under the Stars is back.
The fundraising event, produced by AAP-Food Samaritans, is scheduled to take place on Saturday, Oct. 14. It will mark the return of what had been one of the most popular annual celebrations of the Coachella Valley high season since its inception in 1993.
The festivities, scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m., will take place at the Old Las Palmas home (formerly known as “Houston South”) of Brad Lampley and Rigo Lomeli and will feature a special appearance Lily Tomlin.
In a recent interview with the Independent, Mark Anton, the CEO and executive director of AAP-FS, described what attendees can look forward to enjoying that night.
“Obviously, cocktails and food are in order,” Anton said. “They’ll all be catered by Willie (Rhine) at Eight4Nine. We’ll have music performances, and we’re giving community awards to folks who are important and significant in our community. … It’s a beautiful setting with lots of green rolling lawns. We’ve got a great DJ, a small live auction—and the grooviest thing to me is that we’re taking ourselves back to where we started. That’s why we’re calling it ‘Back to Our Roots.’”
Anton professed no knowledge of how Tomlin would participate in this October’s revelry.
“She’s just going to lend her voice of support,” Anton said. “Her face graces our website, and has for many years. If you know Lily, she’s incredibly quick-witted, fun and funny, and very smart. I think it’ll be a surprise.”
The recipients of this year’s Community Impact Award are Lori and Aubrey Serfling, and Nelda Linsk, all of whom have been longtime supporters of AAP-FS.
Anton explained how circumstances, including COVID-19, forced a re-thinking of how the event is staged.
“In 2017 and 2018 and those years before,” Anton said, “(the event costs) were very reasonable, because we could get catering for $125 per person, and the venue was not nearly as expensive. For catering, the real issue was trying to find staff who could serve that many people when it was in the old format as a sit-down dinner. They would have to truck people in from L.A., so trying to do an event for 1,200-1,400 people was just insurmountable. It just wasn’t in the cards any more to spend the kind of money that event would cost today.”
The goal of the event has always been to increase the visibility of AAP-FS, and to help raise the funds needed for staff and volunteers to fulfill their organization’s mission of alleviating food insecurity and improving the quality of life for low-income people living with chronic illnesses in Palm Springs and surrounding communities.
“Our fingers are crossed, and our goal is to raise $150,000,” Anton said. “I think it’s an achievable goal. … With great sponsors like Hot Purple Energy, Eisenhower Health and the Grace Helen Spearman Foundation and other really great people behind us, I think we’re going to have a really wonderful event and make some good money for our clients, which is what we need to do.”
The signature food-lifeline program managed by AAP-FS begins with their purchase of food vouchers, which are then delivered, either in-person or via mail, to well-screened clients in the Coachella Valley.
“Our fingers are crossed, and our goal is to raise $150,000. I think it’s an achievable goal.”
Mark Anton, CEO and executive director of AAP-Food Samaritans
“We purchase the vouchers from Stater Bros. at a 5% discount,” Anton said. “We buy a $150 gift card for $142.50. We used to have our clients come to the office and (pick up their cards) in-person, and there was a lot of camaraderie amongst them, because most of them don’t have families or a big Rolodex of friends. But when COVID started, we actually started sending them in the mail. Clients can use them for anything they want except alcohol, pet products or tobacco products. The Friends of the Palm Springs Animal Shelter gives us pet food for those clients who have cats and/or dogs, or what have you. Right now, that pet food is delivered by our volunteers to the clients’ homes. But we haven’t re-started the in-person delivery (of vouchers), because COVID is still looming, and many of our clients are living with compromised health, so we want to make it easy for them. A lot of them do have caregivers who will go shopping for them, so it works out really well.”
In order to receive food vouchers, clients have to meet a rigorous list of requirements involving their place of residence, lifestyle habits and degree of financial need. One local-residency requirement displayed under the “program guidelines” on the AAP-FS website stipulates that any potential client must live within 25 miles of Palm Springs. A quick check of distances shows that, for instance, residents of Coachella, Mecca and Thermal cannot qualify, because they live 29 miles or more from Palm Springs.
“We’re flexible,” Anton said, “but part of our problem is that someday, we will go back to delivering vouchers in-person. Our logic for initiating (that requirement) many, many years ago was that it doesn’t make sense for people to drive out to Coachella and to spend all that money on gas. Quite frankly, a lot of it is because we’re stewards of our donors’ money, so we try to concentrate on serving the people in the community and not having to worry about someone from the city of Riverside or Orange trying to sneak in and qualify. It was just a control (mechanism) to try to really serve those who are nearby and in need. The organization started out only serving those who were HIV-positive or living with AIDS. But we’re always willing to listen to people’s needs that are transparent. Rules are meant to be stretched at times, when need be. We’re not 100% rigid on that.”
Anton credited the organization’s volunteers for providing the critical support that allows the AAP-FS auxiliary food service to function—and he said they can always use more help.
“We have all kinds of volunteer roles from clerical stuff in our office, to sending invitations, to making phone calls to clients to check on their well-being,” Anton said. “At events we always need greeters. Since there’s only one and a half of us (on staff)—that’s myself and my assistant Craig, who’s fantastic—we always need volunteers.”
According to Anton, tickets have been selling well.
“We’re capping attendance at 350 people, and we’re almost there,” Anton said.
Evening Under the Stars will take place at 5:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 14, at the home of Brad Lampley and Rigo Lomeli. Tickets are $200, and the address will be provided upon purchase. For tickets or more information, call 760-325-8481, or visit www.aapfoodsamaritans.org.
