On April 28th close friends Debbie Ragonig and Kim Colton hosted the 1st Annual Gourmet Cupcakes & Champagne fundraiser at the Federal Bar in North Hollywood. Only two weeks before Mother’s Day, the timing seemed to align perfectly as Debbie planned an event to honor the memory of her mom. After enduring cancer treatment on and off during her adult life Debbie’s mom ultimately faced a pancreatic cancer diagnosis which she fought for 6 months.
Ten years later, Debbie began a journey of becoming increasingly pro-active for her own health as well as for her kids. After much research on pancreatic cancer and ways to help join the fight, Debbie recalls reading articles from medical journals and statistics about the disease. She thought to herself, Cupcakes and Champagne should definitely be a recipe to help fight against pancreatic cancer…and so this event was born.
With over 75 people in attendance the fundraiser raised $7,000 in three hours. Guests attending received unlimited free cupcake samples, a swag bag, a raffle ticket and a glass of champagne. Debbie and Kim searched, what seemed like, all of Southern California for the right bakeries and prizes their guests would spend big bucks on. The response to donation requests was amazing! They collected 14 silent auction packages including a Napa Valley trip, VIP seats to “The Ellen Show,” deep sea fishing for two, VIP tickets to the Tonite Show with Jay Leno, and much more. And it didn’t stop there. Over 30 raffle packages decorated the Federal Bar including gift cards to movies, restaurants, activities, getaways and even a Lucky Strike Bowling party. A full room was dedicated to eight leading Los Angeles bakeries including two winners from Season 2 of Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars” , Bake You Happy and Double “D” Cupcakes, who made and donated cupcakes. Joining the line-up of bakeries adding more decadent cupcakes was Create Your Own Cake Bakery, Cup My Cakez, Heavenly Frostings Shoppe, The Blooming Bakery, ButterSweet Minis, and Nothing Bundt Cakes. This class act was topped off with champagne to sip and cheese platters. To say the least, the number of sponsors and donations for this event was off the chart!
Kim and Debbie were very happy with how our event came together and turned out. Kim commented, “We wanted to host our own event to raise money for pancreatic cancer. The event turned out better than we could have hoped. It was a lot of work but well worth it.” I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house when Debbie gave her speech and told her story. You might be able to find this on Facebook or Instagram, the story was very safeguarded by those at the event. Debbie does have an Instagram account where she’s sharing her day-to-day life experiences, let’s give her some free instagram followers to get her account going! 🙂