By Elizabeth Cloutman
Woodside-Atherton Auxiliary to hold its 51st Tally Ho fund-raiser for Packard Children’s Hospital
“Wishing on a Star” is the theme for the 51st annual Tally Ho fund-raiser for Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. The event is scheduled for 5:30 p.m., Saturday, at the Menlo Circus Club in Atherton, and will include cocktails, dinner, both silent and live auctions, and dancing.
“The most important thing the auxiliary does is help the hospital financially in giving hope to children,” said Los Altos resident Joanie Meyers, this year’s Tally Ho coordinator.
For the second year in a row, Tally Ho plans to donate its special project proceeds to the work and research of Dr. Michael Black, a pediatric cardiac surgeon, who developed minimally invasive surgical techniques to repair heart defects in infants and children. The technique uses fiber optic technology to thread voice-activated robotic devices into a child’s tiny heart chambers.
Miniature cameras illuminate and magnify real-time images of the heart, and display them on high definition video monitors during surgery. Surgical incisions are small, usually one to two inches, so that children can leave the hospital within a day or two, and are left with minimal scarring.
Black is also in the process of developing new techniques that will allow prenatal cardiac surgery because some unborn infants can suffer damage to their health as a result of their hearts not developing well. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation will match all benefit proceeds dollar-for-dollar.
Tally Ho has its roots in the 1920s, when a group of Palo Alto children began staging a series of riding events and circuses. When the children began charging admission, their parents directed them to give their proceeds to charity. They selected the Stanford Convalescent Home for Children as the beneficiary.
Eventually, parents purchased a parcel of land west of El Camino Real. The site became the Menlo Circus Club. The children’s circuses were discontinued, but in 1930, the Junior Auxiliary - which became the Woodside-Atherton Auxiliary to Children’s Hospital at Stanford - resurrected them. World War II halted the fund-raiser for a time, but the auxiliary has sponsored the Tally Ho benefit continually since 1950. In 1991, Children’s reopened as Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital.
The Woodside-Atherton Auxiliary currently has 31 members from Los Altos and Los Altos Hills.
This year’s benefit features food prepared by some of the Peninsula’s celebrity chefs. The live auction will be led by Patrick Walsh, of San Francisco’s Butterfield and Butterfield auction house. Joel Nelson’s orchestra will provide music for dancing.
The Menlo Circus Club is located at 190 Park Lane, Atherton. Cost of the Tally Ho benefit is $175 per person. For reservations, call (877) TALLY HO. For more information, logon to www.WWAcharity.org.
