Around Town: Festival of Children joins charitable Christmas party
Staff members of the Costa Mesa-based Festival of Children Foundation will head to the Los Angeles Mission on Wednesday for their third year of helping needy families celebrate Christmas.
After the families have a meal prepared by Ben Ford, son of actor Harrison Ford, children will be invited to enter the Festival of Children’s Sharing the Spirit holiday party, featuring a visit with Santa Claus and toys donated by JAKKS Pacific.
Jewish center sponsors Christmas volunteering
JCC Cares, a program of the Merage Jewish Community Center in Irvine, is sending about 70 volunteers to prepare and serve breakfast Christmas Day at The Lighthouse, a soup kitchen and pantry in Costa Mesa.
Volunteers also will provide a holiday party for women and children at Regina House, a transitional shelter in Santa Ana, and deliver cookies to Irvine police officers and Costa Mesa firefighters.
Ex-patient gives $1.5 million to Hoag stroke program
The Hoag Hospital Foundation has received a $1.5 million gift from former patient Gary Fudge of Newport Beach to support the stroke program of the Hoag Neurosciences Institute.
Four years ago, Fudge, the founder of Automotive.com, was rushed to the Joan & Andy Fimiano Emergency Pavilion at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, where he learned he had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke.
“I am here today because of the exceptional team at Hoag, and particularly, Hoag Neurosciences Institute,” Fudge said in a statement.
His gift will help update the newly named Fudge Family Advanced Imaging Suite at Hoag Hospital.
$60,000 raised for UCI Armenian studies
A Dec. 14 fundraiser hosted by Garo and Sylvie Tertzakian raised more than $60,000 toward establishing an endowed chair of Armenian studies in the School of Humanities at UC Irvine.
Vahe and Armine Meghrouni pledged $1 million this summer toward the $1.5-million endowment minimum for a faculty chair. The School of Humanities is asking the community to commit the remaining $500,000. The Tertzakians’ fundraiser assisted that effort.
“Armenian studies has a central role to play in the humanities to the extent that it is both focused on one people’s traditions and history and also opens up a much wider horizon of ethical, cultural, intellectual and spiritual concerns that face all humanity,” said Georges Van Den Abbeele, dean of the School of Humanities.
UCI’s Armenian studies program, established in 2007, includes undergraduate coursework in ancient and modern Armenian history and presents a quarterly lecture series.
Donations fund language lab
Newport Harbor High School has opened a world-language lab with donations of $140,000 from the Jabara family of Newport Beach and $25,000 from the Crean Foundation.
The donations paid for 41 computers, headphones, a multimedia system, microphones and personal study stations where students can improve their listening comprehension and speaking skills in Spanish and French.
Harbor Day School sets open house
The public is invited to an open house at Harbor Day School in Newport Beach from 9 a.m. to noon Jan. 10.
Guests will have a chance tour the private coed school at 3443 Pacific View Drive and learn about programs for children in kindergarten through eighth grade. Activities will include a robotics demonstration and an art project. The school’s tide-pool touch tank and technology, engineering and computer science hub also will be open.
The event is open to all ages. Register online at harborday.org/openhouse.
Irvine schools fundraising in final leg
The Irvine Public Schools Foundation is $130,000 shy of its annual fundraising goal of $1.3 million. The money raised, which is matched by the city of Irvine, pays for additional teachers to help reduce class sizes, as well as for music, science, technology and after-school programs.
The fundraising deadline is Dec. 31. For more information, visit ipsf.net.