Fall Philanthropy Report: Children’s Assessment Center Touts ‘Healing’ for Child Abuse Victims
Oct. 8, 2024
What is your mission? The Children’s Assessment Center (The CAC) provides healing services to over 6,300 child sexual abuse victims and their families each year. We offer forensic interviewing, family advocacy, mental health services, medical care, and court services at no cost. We facilitate community outreach and prevention training to raise awareness about child abuse in our community and how to keep children safe. Last year, we provided prevention training to over 35,000 community members, including 23,500 children in schools.
Why did you launch the organization? The CAC is the only child advocacy center in Harris County and one of the largest nationwide. Sadly, before the implementation of advocacy centers, there was not a streamlined process for children. Victims of sexual abuse were often interviewed multiple times by various law enforcement, medical professionals, and mental health clinicians. Here at The CAC, we know that having to recount abuse several times can be retraumatizing, and we sought to find a solution to make a trauma-informed process.
The goal of The CAC is to provide all the services, partners, and resources families need in one place. We collaborate with hundreds of professionals from 60 Partner Agencies (e.g., law enforcement, medical and mental health professionals, nonprofits, and governmental investigative entities) to coordinate investigations, provide services, and protect children. Our hope is that our process will give children the tools necessary to empower them on their healing journey.
How have you impacted the community? Our work is guided by the belief that all children in our community deserve to grow up safe, happy, and healthy. We work to empower children’s healing journeys, restore hope in families, and provide support to avoid long-term trauma. The CAC exists to help our community become a better, safer place for each child of Harris County.
Tell us about your big event. We will host our annual Spirit of Spring Gala to celebrate The Children’s Assessment Center Foundation’s 30th anniversary. We are thrilled to invite community members who have helped us make a lasting impact on child sexual abuse survivors, their families, and our community. We look forward to commemorating the 30th year on April 11, 2025, at The Houstonian Hotel.
How can I help? As adults, it is our responsibility to keep children safe. Your generosity can help empower families on their healing journey and protect vulnerable children. Please consider how you can be part of the solution to end child sexual abuse. Go to our website, cachouston.org, to learn how to donate, volunteer, and protect children in our community.
We exist to protect children, heal families, and prevent child sexual abuse and child sex trafficking in our community.
Keep Reading
Show less
With Billowing Blooms and Evocative ‘Clowns,’ Williams’ Opera Ball Celebrates $2 Million Take
Apr. 7, 2025
Nancy Gonzalez, Denise Reyes, Christina Jack, Destiny Fernandisse (photo by Emily Jaschke)
WHEN THE GRANDE dame of Houston philanthropy steps up to chair the annual gala for one of Houston’s most elite cultural institutions, expect high elegance to abound and big bucks to roll in.
Such was exactly the case when Margaret Alkek Williams chaired the Opera Ball at the Wortham Center, raising a record of more than $2 million for Houston Grand Opera — with a romantic, old-school, spring-savvy “Love Is in the Air” theme, brought to life with thousands of fragrant pastel-colored florals at every turn, and a sea of ballgowns in shades of seasonal pink and green. This was the second $2 million+ ball Williams has chaired for HGO, with this year’s haul beating her own personal best from back in 2014.
A surprise highlight of the evening was a stirring performance honoring the gala’s honorees, Dian and Harlan Stai, who have supported the opera company for decades. HGO General Director and CEO Khori Dastoor “welcomed legendary mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade to the stage, where she performed accompanied [on piano] by HGO Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers,” noted a rep for the company. “Her moving interpretation of Stephen Sondheim’s seminal classic, ‘Send in the Clowns,’ left the audience spellbound.”
Dinner was decadent, with a chilled Romanesco soup, a pairing of prime beef and pan-seared seabass, and a chocolate explosion of a dessert, with bits of fudge cake and chocolate ice cream and mousse, all bursting from a tempered sphere — again, lavishly old school. After dinner, dancing broke out on the gleaming dance floor.
In room full of VIPs, some of the top-tier swells included Anna Dean, Anne and Albert Chao, Betty and Jesse Tutor, Brigitte Kalai, Alicia Smith, Charles and Lily Foster, Cynthia and Tony Petrello, Fady Armanious, Bill Baldwin, Franklin and Cindi Rose, Hallie Vanderhider, Jim and Dancie Ware, Jim and Molly Crownover and Leisa Holland-Nelson Bowman.
Brigitte Kalai, Betty Tutor and Ann Ayre (photo by Michelle Watson)
A greeter in theme-appropriate garb (photo by Michelle Watson)
Ilyas and Elizabeth Abraham (photo by Emily Jaschke)
Patrick Summers, Margaret Alkek Williams and Khori Dastoor (photo by Michelle Watson)
Jim and Dancie Ware (photo by Michelle Watson)
Michael Broderick and Cindy and Franklin Rose (photo by Emily Jaschke)
Harlan and Dian Stai (photo by Emily Jaschke)
Rosemin Premji, Jesse Tutor and Farida Abjani (photo by Michelle Watson)
From Your Site Articles
Keep Reading
Show less
Debbie Festari, Ann Carl, Alicia Smith and Edward Sanchez (photo by Jacob Power)
A FABULOUSLY FASHIONABLE crowd of more than 650 turned up at the American Cancer Society’s annual Tickled Pink luncheon at the Post Oak Hotel. All wearing pink, because of course, they came to raise money for breast cancer research, and also to support some of Houston’s most generous and beloved ladies — chair Sippi Khurana and honorary chairs Leisa Holland-Nelson-Bowman, Donna Lewis, and Beth Wolff.
The event, which featured handsome auctioneer Johnny Bravo dressed in a pink suit and helping raise $36,000 from a Jared Lehr necklace, raised a total of $700,000.
ABC 13’s Gina Gaston served as emcee. Honorees included Myrtle Jones, Leila Perrin, Brandi Sikes, Rick Smith and Gaye Lynn Zarrow.
“Later in the program, previous honoree Janette Marx shared her journey with breast cancer to an attentive room as guests listened in awe,” said a rep for the luncheon’s organizers. “Keynote speaker, Shannon Miller, seven-time Olympic medalist and cancer survivor, closed out the program as she spoke from the heart about her own story of triumph, encouraging guests to overcome any personal challenges.”
Pink Champagne flowed right through lunch, with ended with decadent cheesecake. But the sweetest bit was learning about the impact of the day’s fundraising. Per Jenny Todd, vice president of the American Cancer Society Houston area: “Events like the Tickled Pink Luncheon have led to a 44 percent decline in the female breast cancer death rate by helping to directly fund a cure. In fact, the American Cancer Society is currently investing $84 million in breast cancer-specific research. Fourteen of those grants are right here in Houston, totaling $9 million.”
VIPs guests included Cheryl Byington, Yvonne Cormier, Nancy Dinerstein, Lesha Elsenbrook, Tena Faust, Debbie Festari, Cyndy Garza Roberts, Daniel Irion, Brigitte Kalai, Kirk Kveton, Julie Longoria Chen, Tama Lundquist, DeeDee Marsh, Kim Moody, Patti Murphy, Roz Pactor, David Peck, Amy Pierce, Elizabeth Stein, Phoebe Tudor and Betty Tutor.
Brigitte Kalai, Farida Abjani and Cindy Bendy (photo by Daniel Ortiz)
Sippi Khurana and Phoebe Tudor (photo by Jacob Power)
Brandi Sikes and Leisa Holland Nelson Bowman (photo by Jacob Power)
Ann Bean, Beth Wolff and Kairy Barkley (photo by Jacob Power)
Guest speaker and Olympian Shannon Miller (photo by Daniel Ortiz)
Kelley Lubanko, Sheri Gross, Ellie Francisco, Denise Monteleone and DeeDee Marsh (photo by Daniel Ortiz)
Leila Perrin, Brandi Sikes, Rick Smith, Myrtle Jones and Gaye Lynn Zarrow (photo by Jacob Power)
Jared Lehr (photo by Daniel Ortiz)
Donna Lewis and Christy Lynn (photo by Jacob Power)
Keep Reading
Show less