More than $15,000 was raised for the Jackson L.
Graves Foundation during the ninth annual Red, White and Baby Blue event June 28 at the Garden Room in Fayetteville.
About 80 people attended the event, which included hors d’oeuvres, a silent auction, lucky number auction and live music, said Angie Graves, co-founder of the Jackson L. Graves Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit organization that works to improve the quality of life for neonatal and pediatric patients and families involved in critical care situations, according to the foundation’s website.
The foundation was created in memory of Jackson L.
Graves, son of Angie and James Graves. He was born Oct. 12, 2004, eight weeks premature and had an abdominal wall birth defect known as a giant omphalocele, which is a defect at the base of the umbilical cord where an infant’s intestines and some other organs are in a sac protruding through the defect, according to the foundation website. After a more than four month battle at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, he passed away Feb. 19, 2005.
The majority of the money raised at the event will go toward the foundation’s project fund, Graves said.
The $3,700 raised during a pledge drive at the event will go directly toward updating the Jackson L. Graves Sibling Playroom in the new wing of the neonatal intensive care unit at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock. The additions to the play room will give siblings “a safe and educational place to play while parents are in the NICU with their infant,” according to the foundation website. Graves said they want to expand the library and book collection and give interactive toys and games. She added that she hopes the money allows the foundation to also give a multimedia center for the room.
The room opened last summer, and Graves said she was told items disappear fast and get torn up and there wasn’t a large fund to replenish the broken or missing items. Along with items to update the room, Graves said they want to provide a maintenance fund.
“We want to continue to take care of that room,” she said.
There were close to 40 silent auction items at the event, she said. The lucky number auction featured 13 items, such as a Bliss Cupcake package, a statement necklace and a “Hog Wild” painting. For this auction,people bought tickets and could distribute them in a bowl in front of each item.
One ticket was drawn out of each item’s bowl at the end of the evening to determine winners.
Music was provided by Christopher Key Cash. The hors d’oeuvres were catered by the Garden Room.
AT A GLANCE Red, White and Baby Blue
Who: Jackson L. Graves Foun
dation
When: June 28
Where: The Garden Room in
Fayetteville
Amount raised: More than
$15,000
Information: jacksongraves.
org
Northwest Profile, Pages 34 on 07/07/2013