Foster Care Volunteer Group Benefits from Ice House Comedy Show

(Pasadena, CA)— Each year, the Hillsides Volunteer Network (HVN) hosts a silent and live auction at The Ice House’s anniversary show to benefit Hillsides, a foster care children’s charity in Pasadena. This year’s event in October marked the famed comedy club’s 46th anniversary.

More than fifty guests browsed over thirty silent auction lots at the charity’s event, including autographed books, DVD and CD boxed sets, gift baskets, china and glassware, designer sportswear, fine jewelry, and fashion accessories. The item that sparked the most spirited bidding war was “Pandora’s Box,” a twenty-pound gift-wrapped package containing more than thirty items—none of which were revealed to bidders beforehand.

“We had lots of great donated items that just didn’t fit into any of the gift baskets we assembled,” says auction chair Paula Johnson of Pasadena. “So these treasures went into Pandora’s Box and netted us a healthy $120!”

The benefit show began at 7 p.m. to a capacity crowd in the club’s main showroom. Ice House owner, and longtime Hillsides’ supporter, Bob Fisher booked comedians Orny Adams, Steve Altman, Andres Fernandez, Lonnie Love, Tom McTigue, and Bob Zany, plus the magician “The Great Scott” and Elvis impersonator Steve Roth. Jay Cohen, the Santa Anita racetrack’s trumpeter, made a special appearance in full regalia.

Surprise guests at the Pasadena event were comedians Norm MacDonald and Paula Poundstone. All performers donated their time for the foster care children’s charity. Fisher even put his son, Mitchell Adams-Fisher, to work as a junior emcee.

At the live auction, bidding was brisk for the Disney’s Day of Fun package, the tickets to Elton John’s Red Piano show, an oil painting by Kendra Page, and a day at the races in the Whittingham Box at Santa Anita.

At the end of the evening, the silent and live auctions including The Ice House donation netted just over $8,000 for the children’s charity volunteers.

HVN will use the funds for outings, special projects, and special gifts for the foster care children. For details on Hillsides Volunteer Network membership, visit the HVN page on the Hillsides website, www.Hillsides.org.


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About Hillsides: As a Pasadena charity founded in 1913, Hillsides creates safe places for children in foster care living in its residential treatment center and is a community treatment center preventing the cycle of abuse for children at risk and their families. To learn more about Hillsides, visit http://www.Hillsides.org.