Labor Day weekend, the Coastline Conference and Event Center will host the fourth annual Last Chance for White Pants Gala to support Lower Cape Fear Hospice & LifeCareCenter. During the event, held Aug. 29, guests will have the opportunity to enjoy heavy hors d’oeuvres, live music and raffle prizes while donning white to celebrate the end of summer.
Event co-chair Linda Brown said in previous years the gala has raised $50,000 to benefit the Lower Cape Fear Hospice Foundation and she expects this year’s event to be more popular than ever.
“We will have 500 tickets and we’ve already sold three-fourths of them,” Brown said during an Aug. 14 phone interview. “The outpouring from our community has really been wonderful.”
Many local businesses have donated items to be raffled off at the event, including jewelry, restaurant gift cards, vacations, hotel stays and a bicycle. Mo’Sol, which played at last year’s event, will entertain guests with a mix of Motown, funk, soul and hip-hop.
“They were so popular [at the 2013 event],” Brown said. “We don’t usually repeat, but we listened to the people so we are bringing Mo’Sol back this year.”
Proceeds from the gala will benefit the Every Moment Matters Campaign to add a six-room patient wing and renovate the existing 12-room Dr. Robert M. Fales Hospice Pavilion, Wilmington’s inpatient hospice care center. Lower Cape Fear Hospice development director Veronica Godwin said the campaign goal is to raise $3.1 million for the project by the end of the year.
“The existing [12 bedroom] building is over 17 years old,” Godwin said during an Aug. 15 phone interview. “We’re replacing the furniture, replacing the beds, and painting … and also we’re building a brand new [six-bedroom] facility.”
Godwin said the expansion was necessary given the need for hospice care.
“We generally have a waiting list and when a bed becomes available we are filling it within hours,” Godwin said. “We’ll be able to serve more patients that are in need of acute end of life care. … This will increase our in-patient capacity by 50 percent.”
Brown said the Last Chance for White Pants Gala has encouraged an outpouring of support for hospice care from the community because it is an organization that impacts the lives of so many people.
“Most of us, if we haven’t been touched by hospice at some point in our lives, we will probably,” Brown said.
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