12th FCC Annual Charity Ball Rocks for Charity with a Rousing Performance by Huey Lewis and the News

Oct. 20, 2013 - PRLog -- The 12^th Foreign Correspondents’ Club Annual Charity Ball was held last October 5 at the Grand Hall of the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre with 1,400 guests.

The evening started with the presentation of the new batch of FCC scholars by FCC President, Tara Joseph, and Po Leung Kuk Chairman, Dr. Eric K.C. Cheng.  Young students from the Po Leung Kuk HKTA Yuen Yuen Primary School danced to the Huey Lewis and the News song Hip to be Square as Huey Lewis and other band members watched the children’s performance on the sidelines. Ball guests were treated to a sumptuous dinner with fine wines provided by Distilleria Bottega of Italy and top Bordeaux wines from the Crus Bourgeois du Medoc classification.  After the exciting live auction, guests were then treated to an outstanding 16-song concert by one of America’s great rock and roll bands, Huey Lewis and the News.

Huey Lewis and the News continues a stellar line up of famous performers at the FCC ball including INXS, the Doobie Brothers, Beach Boys, Blondie, Sergio Mendes, the Charlie Daniels Band and Credence Clearwater Revisited.

The FCC Charity Ball is the club’s main annual fund raising event for the Po Leung Kuk/UBS/FCC Language Training Program, the Po Leung Kuk/Bank of America Merrill Lynch/FCC Children’s Learning Centre, the Po Leung Kuk/UBS/FCC Child Development Program, the Po Leung Kuk/Henrik Nielsen/FCC Scholarship Fund and the Po Leung Kuk/Sprouts Foundation/FCC Education Services Centre, charities that help provide a better future for the underprivileged children of Hong Kong.

The live auction generated a record breaking amount as generous guests tried to outbid each other for rare and unusual items like a fully restored and customized 1976 Harley Davidson motorcycle, Muhammad Ali’s 1970’s Training Camp Door filled with Ali’s hand-written notations, a 7-day Silversea cruise from Barcelona to Rome, a Fender electric guitar signed by the Rolling Stones, a Cathay Pacific HK/Paris ticket with accommodations at the Mandarin Oriental Paris and the Landmark Mandarin with a 2-Michelin star dinner prepared by Amber’s Chef Richard Ekkebus, a voting form signed by Nelson Mandela, and many other valuable items.

Ball guests bid enthusiastically for silent auction items like the Cartier Mini Pink Tank Divan watch, a visit to the Aston martin Racing test tract with stay at the Dorchester Hotel London, 5 nights stay at Villa Suralai in Koh Samui, an elegant, beaded Catherine Deane gown, a Sense of Touch spa experience for two, and many other exciting items.

With a large number of Huey Lewis and the News fans in attendance, ball guests swarmed to the front of the stage at the start of the much-awaited performance.  The band, together with an excellent 4-man horn section, was in top form as they performed their greatest hits with Huey Lewis engaging the crowd and encouraging them to sing along.  Apart from Huey Lewis on lead vocals and harmonica , the band line up included original band members Johnny Colla, Bill Gibson, Sean Hopper and long time band members John Pierce, Stef Burns, Johnnie Bamont, Marvin McFadden, Rob Sudduth,

Aside from ticket sales, a major part of the annual fund raiser is the Raffle Draw which this year gave away top prizes including a Chopard L.U.C 1860 men’s watch, Dragon Air tickets to Da Nang with stay at Banyan Tree Lang Co, stay at a suite at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, stay at a suite at the Peninsula Chicago,  among many other fabulous prizes.

Among the distinguished guests at this year’s ball were current Po Leung Kuk Chairman Dr. Eric K.C. Cheng, FCC President Tara Joseph, former FCC President Keith Richburg, Sally Leung, Robert Ho, John Slosar, Abbie Chan, Kristie Lu Stout, David Harilela, David Ferraris, Greg Liddell, Reyna Harilela, Shirley Hiranand, and many other high profile business and social figures.

About the FCC Charity Fund

The FCC Charity Fund is very proud of the community service projects the charity ball has funded since 2002.  The FCC Scholarship Fund was set up to help underprivileged children who wish to pursue tertiary education.   To date, the Scholarship Fund has awarded 137 scholarships..  The graduated scholars are working as lawyers, nurses, accountants, bankers and some are entrepreneurs running their own businesses.

In 2005, the Language Training Program (LTP) was launched at the Po Leung Kuk (PLK)  headquarters in Causeway Bay that teaches English and Putonghua to the PLK’s 300 children in residential care, aged 2 to 18 years old.  The program was launched to address the need of Hong Kong employers for a multilingual work force fluent in Cantonese, English and Putonghua.  The Po Leung Kuk/UBS/FCC Language Training Program offers extra-curricular English and Putonghua tuition through a system that makes learning a foreign language fun, interesting and stimulating.

In 2009, the Po Leung Kuk/Bank of America Merrill Lynch/FCC Children's Learning Centre (CLC) and the Po Leung Kuk/UBS/FCC Child Development Program (CDP) opened in Lei Muk Shue to provide language training and family and child development services to the estate residents in the area.  With increased funding from UBS in 2010, the CDP was able to set up the Baby College, a service that works closely with pregnant women and their families and provides structured parent and child programs to help the baby have a complete developmental workout and improve the relationship between young children and their parents.

In 2011, the Po Leung Kuk/Sprouts Foundation/FCC Education Services Centre in Tai Wai started teaching English to primary school children.  Students come from disadvantaged families where 22% of the area’s adult population has been educated no further than primary school.  Parents with little formal education face great difficulty in helping their own children develop further.  The centre can accommodate 120 students and a fourth centre is due to open soon.

The most recent initiative involves a sports program, Tackling Life, supported by Macquarie Group and the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union that would provide new opportunities for children and young people from disadvantaged areas of Hong Kong to get involved in Rugby.  The aim is to engage young people in sports as an alternative to crime and anti-social behaviour.

Donations

The FCC Charity Fund welcomes donations in cash or kind and these can be channeled thru Ms. Mireya Garcia at mayahk@gmail.com.To receive more information about the fund-raising activities of the FCC Charity Fund and its work with Po Leung Kuk, please visit http://www.fcchkcharityfund.org or the Po Leung Kuk web site at www.poleungkuk.org.hk

For more info about David Garcia Hong Charities, visit: http://davidgarciahk.com