Mayor’s Ball to help ‘Beat Back Hunger’

MAT-SU — In the midst of another long, cold, dark Alaska winter, the 2011 Mayors Ball is the perfect excuse to dress up and enjoy a night out.

A few tickets are left to this year’s Mayor’s Ball, from 8 to 11 p.m., Saturday at Raven Hall on the Alaska State Fairgrounds. Cost is $30 per person, or $200 for a table of eight. People attending also are asked to bring donations of cash or canned goods for the fund-raiser.

Long-time local attorney and homesteader Bill Tull deserves the credit for putting together the event last year for the first time, according to organizing committee member Cherie LaBlanc-Shue, who also works for the United Way.

“It’s Bill Tull’s brainchild,” she said. “He saw a need in the community to fill the shelves of the food banks after the holidays. January comes and the food is gone, but the need is not.”

So last year Tull gathered volunteers to help organize and put on the Valley’s first Mayor’s Ball, which raised more than $5,000 in cash and 4,000 pounds of food for local food banks, said LaBlanc-Shue.

“In January, heaven knows we need a reason to get sparkly,” she said of the Alaska-formal event.

Tull said this year’s event also is a benefit for local food banks. The money and food donations received will go to the United Way, which will in turn redistribute the resources to food distribution programs in Willow, Big Lake, Wasilla and Palmer, he said.

He will perform with the “Bill Tull Big Band” and has invited the Burchell High School Dancers to help with the “Beat Back Hunger” event, too.

“Some of those kids are the ones who are hungry,” Tull said of the more than 100 homeless students known to attend Burchell.

Among all Valley residents, LaBlanc-Shue said the estimate is that 11 percent of Mat-Su Borough residents go hungry sometimes.

After last year’s event sold out at the Moose Lodge in Palmer, volunteer Linda Combs said the committee decided to move the event to Raven Hall this year. That venue can seat 500, though so far, only 300 to 320 tickets are sold, Combs said, who is in charge of ticket sales.

Tickets also are for sale through the Palmer Chamber of Commerce, United Way, Fireside Books or the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce, she said. And, if there are any tickets left, tickets also will be sold at the door, she said.

Combs said if people plan to buy tickets at the door, they should call her to reserve tickets and so she can make sure to have enough tables and chairs set up for everyone.

“I think people appreciate an opportunity to put on the Ritz. And we do it so well,” Combs said.

For tickets, visit palmerchamber.org, or call Linda Combs at 746-0366.

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.