Chinatown Chamber of Commerce Helps Nonprofit Design New-Year- Theme Ball

On Saturday night, red lanterns, dragon dancers, and paper umbrellas filled the grand ballroom at Navy Pier, where Marklund hosted its Top Hat ball. Devoted to assisting children and adults with severe developmental disabilities, the organization adopts a new theme for each year's fund-raiser. For this iteration, "the chairman of our board threw out the idea of Chinese New Year, and we decided to run with it," said Marklund director Jeannine Zupo.

Zupo's first step in desigining the festive ball was to solicit guidance from cultural experts. "I worked very closely with the Chinatown Chamber of commerce," she said. "They helped me with almost everything, from finding dancers from the Chinese American Service League to hiring musicians from the Chinese Fine Arts Society."

The evening's entertainment included traditional elements of Chinese New Year celebrations, including dragon, lion, and handkerchief dances. There were also more subtle reminders of the holiday. During the cocktail hour, guests read about their Chinese zodiac signs on printouts that topped highboys. Red envelopes, which adults traditionally fill with money for children as a New Year gift, also decorated tabletops. "There were even little things that people may not have noticed, like oranges in the salad," Zupo said, explaining that in Chinese culture, the fruit symbolizes good luck for the new year.

The theme carried over into the fund-raising. Of the 12 packages in a live auction, a cruise through Asia raked in the highest bid, selling for $17,000. "I have a few other couples who want to match that and pay for a duplicate package," Zupo said on Monday. "That's really key. I had 30 fewer bodies at my event this year, but we exceeded our goal for the live-auction portion. As it stands, the auction raised $120,000, and if I can duplicate a few more packages, I have the potential to raise another $50,0000."