Guitar picks, silver studs, vodka, and recent issues of Rolling Stone: These are a few of the gifts guests received at the Franciscan Hospital for Children’s Friends Ball at the Intercontinental Hotel on Friday. This year, the event’s theme was "Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame," chosen to highlight the hospital’s music therapy program. The affair raised $300,000 for the program, meeting—and well exceeding—the planners' goal to best the previous year’s event, which raised $185,000.
Director of events Marissa Podolski said she felt confident that the hospital would achieve its goal. “This year, we focused on cutting expenses where we could and developing new revenue sources that would benefit our fund-raising efforts," she said. "We crafted unique sponsorship agreements and [custom] sponsorship levels, catering to the needs of our sponsors while adding to the overall theme of the event.”
Sponsorship agreements included presenting sponsor Echostor Technologies, which donated $25,000 and underwrote guitar-shaped flash drives given to attendees. Appleton Partners, a local financial services firm, gave $10,000 and was the underwriter for the Rolling Stone copies. Other sponsorship levels were available for $10,000, including Cambridge Savings Bank's sponsorship of the cocktail reception and staffing firm Winter Wyman Companies' sponsorship of the evening's signature cocktail, a blackberry mojito dubbed the "Sweet Emotion."
During the cocktail reception, Gin C. Productions provided temporary tattoos in the shapes of skulls, lightning, and barbed wire. The New Balance Foundation sponsored a photo booth where guests could pose with rock-inspired props and apparel. Representatives from V.I.P. sponsor the Claddagh Fund, founded by the Dropkick Murphys, gave out copies of the band’s newest CD, and an electric guitarist played hits from the '70s and '80s. Guests also perused some 50 silent auction offerings.
The auction lots ranged in value from $150 to $2,200 and included several items deemed priceless, such as a team-autographed Celtics basketball. The majority of the items, however, reflected the evening’s musical theme. Mohegan Sun donated tickets to an upcoming Van Halen concert, Todd Harris contributed an autographed Coldplay poster, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame provided a trip for four to Cleveland.
The three-course dinner concluded with a “Tribute to the King” dessert of peanut butter banana mousse, deep-friend house-made Twinkie, and chocolate rocky road ice cream. During dessert, masters of ceremonies Greg Hill of radio station WAAF and Tom Hamilton of Aerosmith led a live auction. Packages included 18 tickets to a Boston Bruins suite and an autographed team stick, and a four-course chef’s-table dinner for 10 at the Capital Grille. Tom Hamilton donated an Aerosmith Summer Tour 2012 package with two concert tickets, backstage passes, and a meet and greet with his band.
Party Favors supplied custom cupcakes for the after-party, which offered live music from seven-piece horn and rhythm band Soho. Decorated with chocolate treble clefs and red sugar quarter-notes, the desserts were available to eat on premises or as parting gifts; Chinese takeout boxes were on hand for those who opted to take home the sweets. The black-and-red color scheme on the cupcakes complemented Winston Flowers’ bouquets of red roses adorned with large black bows and star-shaped silver confetti and Peterson Party Center’s red and black linens.
