Partying for a Good Cause

Not much happens on this island of Maui. It's a groundhog day. Go to work. My office is beautiful most days. Eat some food. Drink some wine. Maybe go dancing. Go to bed. Then do it again. So it's very exciting when something goes down "mainland style" but with a Maui twist, to spice up my life and everyone else's. And it's even better when this event helps out a beloved friend in need.

One of our long time bartenders at Hula Grill, his brother has stage 3 liver cancer with no health insurance. So my friend Ola had the idea to throw a massive party and have all of the proceeds go to Jeff Worthen, Mike's brother. A bunch of us fellow employees combined our talents and put together the biggest party to hit Lahaina in years.

The red Chinese lanterns we painted to decorate with

Ola, being a rockstar in a famous Maui band, and owning his own recording studio in Lahaina, had many hook ups around town in the entertainment industry. And he has experience running the production of parties in the past. I have connections in the fashion industry, photographers, media folks, and I am one mean organized son of a gun. We also had our other friends help with promotion, marketing, and decorations and behind the scenes set up and running the party the night of.

Our venue was sick. The drummer from Fleetwood Mac (yes the famous band), Mick Fleetwood just opened a new restaurant on Front Street. It is 2 stories, with an open rooftop with only a cabana overhang. The decorations are kind of Eastern style elegant, brassy, candle lights, rich colors, and relaxed but sleek- it's really cool.

We decided to call the event Celebration of Love and Life with a Red Glitz and Glamour theme. NO one in Lahaina ever gets a chance to dress up. This was a collared event that called for the ladies to put on a nice dress and do their hair and makeup. We wanted to celebrate life, realizing it is short and you must savor every minute that you can. To celebrate Jeff and give him a fun night to enjoy life out of the chaos of chemotherapy and hospital bills. And to celebrate love, because after all love is life, and it was a few days before Valentine's Day.

The entertainment line up for the evening was off the hook! We had famous Maui reggae band Sounds of Addiction head lining the event, with various other special local music guests. There was a "black" carpet entrance (we didn't have a red one), which provided for a rock star entrance for all of the guests with 8+ photographers snapping their photos like paparazzi as they headed into the party. A beautifully stylized fashion show was put on by Pure Talent USA modeling agency (friends of mine) along with the Red Glitz and Glamour theme with lacy, flowy, pink, red, and white colors, and professional models working the runway (in which I was one of). There were DJs on both levels spinning current music and gogo dancers that had a huge sheet to dance behind so their silhouettes shown through. Ola had very professional sound equipment set up every where, and professional lighting all around the party, especially lining the runway for the fashion show. A silent auction and raffle was put on using local companies' provided goods, certificates, jewelry, art, excursions, etc. AND the coolest thing of the show was what no one has done before- a dating auction.

Many major local excursion companies donated some really cool big ticket excursions like whale watches, parasails, even a helicopter tour. We decided to take those big excursions and pair them with some of the restaurant gift certificates that we donated and create a date. This date was then paired with a lovely lady or studly man to accompany the guest on the date. So we planned to auction "Betty" for a date on a sunset whale watch cruise and dinner afterwards and Kimo's in Lahaina. Pretty cool huh? Instead of just auctioning "Betty" off for the guest to plan and pay for a date with, why not make the valued $300 date apart of the auction. That'll help us raise more money for Jeff, and make every person desirable to be bought at the auction because they came with a stellar date.

I got ready at 6 in the morning to get to the radio station in time. This is what happens when you get ready in the dark. Two different color boots...

We walked around different towns in Maui handing out flyers and getting people pumped up. Posters were set in major hang out spots, and all along the stores that line Front Street. With Ola's connections, we had commercials and DJ's promoting on at least 5 radio stations, and some of us behind-the-scenes planners went into the stations for interviews, including me :) If you would like to see my interview here is the link:

Q103 Behind the Scenes with Tiffany and Bridget
(http://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_embedded&v=prhJ2h7JsoQ)

Our bartender friend Mike is in the white and his brother Jeff is in the Aloha shirt

Sounds like the party to be at right?! Well after a week of staying up until 3 am (not joking) every night to plan and configure everything, the big party day came! We decorated in the morning, set up equipment all day, and then I had to get all done up at the salon for hair and makeup, which was the best makeup artist I have ever had do my makeup for a fashion show, by the way :), then rush back over and make sure everything went smoothly. Parties are not Jon's bag, so he helped out at the front door collecting money and handing out raffle tickets. I checked in all of the photographers, set up their light equipment, set up the silent auction table and put someone in charge of it, checked in the gogo dancers, set up their sheet to dance behind, practiced the runway walk for the photographers to test lighting, briefed all of the models on the extremely bright lights shooting up into their eyes (so they don't trip), and looked darn hot all the while haha! The party was set.

We sold 400 presale tickets for the event, which was the capacity that the venue could hold. Which may have been a mistake. Because the front door was flooded with people wanting to buy tickets the night of, yet, we were instructed to not sell any at door tickets because they didn't want to be over capacity. Eventually everyone was let in. The fashion show went off flawlessly. Pure Talent USA provided a bomb opening act to the show with live drummers and tahitian dancing to grab everyone's attention before we graced the runway with our presence. The different designs we flaunted were Hayhay Couture, and the stores Blue and Karina's that are on Front Street. The photographers that  evening with RJ Kessler, Jackie Jean, Jessica Pearl, Todd Mizomi, Pure Talent USA's Merman Media, Kyer Wiltshire, and maybe a few others that I haven;t received photographs from.Pure Digital Maui and Noah filmed the event as well. Hair by Niki Guy and makeup by Megs Barnett, and backstage helper by Teresa Pinedo.

A view from my side of things

Huge turnout. This is only one level

After the hype of the fashion show I ran back to be behind the scenes and run the show. Things got a little rough. In Maui we have a VERY rigidly strict liquor commission and has very odd rules that most states do not. They govern everything that goes down within an establishment selling liquor. The worst thing right now is that there is a new lady running the liquor commission and she is out to prove herself. She came to give fines here and there and shut down a party that is for CHARITY. She fined the restaurant for a few tiny things and shut down our raffle, silent auction AND the big event- the dating auction because we didn't have the permits to do so... so now we couldn't make anymore money for a cancer patient because she wants to put her foot down and say we need a permit? No one has even heard of a permit for a silent auction, and I was under the impression that we made up the dating auction, all the sudden there was a permit required for it?

Sounds of Addiction

The Behind-the-scenes, walkie-talkie holding hooligans running the show

Me after the event, very sleepy red eyes, but I had to show off my funky jewelry. It's an earring that connects to a cuff on the cartilage on the top of my ear

So the party didn't go off without a few bumps in the road. But we brought something fun and new to the people of Lahaina, and it was all for a good cause! People still had a blast despite our shut down dating auction. In the end, I created a silent auction online for the dates that we were not able to sell during the dating auction and made another $965 for Jeff. Overall, with cost taken out, we raised almost $8,000 for Jeff. I like to see anyone try and do that through a car wash. Ola and I gave Jeff the cash and the look on his face was beautiful. Look what a bunch of Maui waiters and waitresses can do for a man in need. We had fun doing it, and it was amazing to see how willing all of the companies were to donate, all of the media folk were willing to give up their time and editing energy for no price, the modeling agency and models did it all for free, the lighting and sound equipment were just lent out, and people just wanted to buy a ticket to support, even if they weren't able to make it. Thank you to anyone reading this who donated their time or came out to support that evening by dancing the night away with a happy giving heart!

In early January I also modeled in a fashion show in Kihei. It was called the Revolution Remixx held at Stella Blues. We were wearing designs by Love Hard by MJ Ignacio, Hayhay Couture an Arie Bikinis by Ariana Hornkohl. Photography by Todd Mizomi and Merman Media. Hair and Makeup by Julianita and Sara Byrd.

Walking the runway is such an adrenaline rush for me. It's a few minutes of fame but it does take work and prep before hand. I mostly model for free, for trade with the photographs. Which is fine with me. It would be rather glamorous to walk the catwalks across Europe and be a real runway model, but that would change who I am. That is a whole different world I do not want to be apart of. So for now, I'll just get my rush from free (tasteful) Maui fashion shows.


Maui No Ka Oi