Living Proof

A very special off the menu announcement!  La Doug, my roommate, regular guest star on EDOW, and one of my dearest friends, is having a fundraiser for his new not-for-profit organization, Living Proof Productions.  To quote from his website:

Our first initiative is to produce and distribute a documentary video aimed at teens and young adults. This project has a simple, if ambitious goal: to illuminate the risk, and too often the great tragedy, of facing mental illness blindly.

The documentary will tell the story of his sister, Nichole Pagliaro, who took her own life at the age of 27 in 1999.  You can read all about the project at his website, http://www.proofonline.org.  This is not the kind of charity run by a gaggle of sorority girls with trust funds and ball gowns.  This is the grassroots efforts of one guy hoping to help people like his sister.  So many people have been affected by suicide.  I believe in the cause and I believe in Doug.

Here's where you come in: on May 25th, Doug is having a fundraiser in the Chelsea Market.  There will be fab hors d'oeuvres, wine, cocktails, and music.  Tickets are $75 presale, or $100 at the door.  Donations are tax-deductible.  You can donate by check or by credit card.  Can't swing the full $75?  Your donation, small or large, will be greatly appreciated.  But maybe you can get your coworkers to chip in a few bucks here and there so you can come and partake of the event.

I was trying to figure out a way to pimp myself out as some sort of funny raffle prize to people who read this blog but once I started googling, all the legalities seemed daunting. 

So let's say this.  I hope many of you readers decide to come to the event -- it will be a reward unto itself.  If you come, introduce yourself, and I'll organize an outing to Zabb Thai Queens for us.  It will be the inaugural event of the tentatively titled EDOW Diners' Club*, a new monthly event I'm hoping to organize in which five people join me for dinner and discussion at one of those great restaurants around New York which everyone talks about but nobody motivates to go to.  (If more than five EDOW readers come to the event, I will organize several different outings to choose from.)  Future outings could include World Tong dim sum in Bensonhurst, Sripraphai in Queens, DiFara's in Ditmas Park, and maybe a few secret aces I've got up my sleeve.

To recap: make a donation, deduct from your taxes, free food, free booze, free music, and feel good about how your parents raised you (alternatively, feel good about how much better you are than your parents ever were).  Added value: become one of the first members of the EDOW Diners' Club.  (Just tell Doug I sent you so I know to look out for you at the fundraiser.)

Cheers, you good people!

*EDOW Diners' Club members each pay for their own dinners.  I work in publishing, people, I can't afford to buy you all dinner, as much as I would love to.  But my organizational skills, my tour guide spiel, and my scintillating company will be free of charge.