After not being held last fall as the COVID-19 pandemic was in full effect, the Faces Foundation is back on track this year as it gears up to host the second annual Gowns & Boots Bash Thursday night at Crystal Ridge Distillery.
The event, which will last from 6 to 10 p.m., is the foundation's largest fundraiser of the year, in which it helps raise money for facial reconstruction surgeries in children and young adults. The inaugural Gowns & Boots Bash, held Sept. 19, 2019, also at Crystal Ridge, saw a change from the two-day Oktoberfest outdoors to the one-night fundraising bash.
Faces Foundation President and Executive Director Ernie Hinz said Monday that he is excited to get the event going again.
"Of course, last year we did not have it," he said. "Prior to that, we used to have the Oktoberfest, then we moved to an indoor concept, which was Gowns & Boots' here at the Crystal Ridge. And then, of course, I'll be switching my golf cap for a cowboy hat and my docksiders for cowboy boots."
Hinz said while the Gowns & Boots' theme is not exactly a Western theme, it is more of a cowboy theme. He noted that the men usually wear a cowboy hat and boots and that the ladies will wear different types of gowns, or some, who wear jeans. He explained, "Whatever works for them."
Catering comes from nine different restaurants throughout the Hot Springs area that offered to donate their food. Along with Crystal Ridge Distillery, contributing to the menu is Steinhaus Keller, Vault at 723, The Porterhouse Steak & Seafood, Rosario's Personal Chef & Caterer, Fat Bottomed Girl's Cupcakes, The Avenue, JB Chophouse Hot Springs (formerly known as Bone's Chophouse), and Ambrosia Bakery. Alcoholic drink samples will be available from the distillery.
Hinz said there is always a bit of competition over what type of food is prepared and that it is usually not revealed until the night of bash. Along with all the food available to attendees, the night's entertainment will be provided by Jacob Flores before the closing silent auction. Hinz explained that this year, they actually have a lot of giveaways that will go out before.
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"We have a number of giveaway gifts that people have donated to us," he said. "And then rather than making it a raffle or an auction, we've done probably 30 items, or maybe as many as 50, that are giveaways. And some of them are $500 value, $600 value, so they're, you know, pretty valuable things, a lot of them. And we have about nine different items that are truly silent auction items.
"And a lot of those are for multiple people, like a one-week stay at a villa in Costa Rica. So on that million-dollar mountain top villa, about 7,000 square feet, it's got five bedrooms, five bathrooms, so it'll support four or five couples. And there's another similar to that in Barbados and another one in Cabo, and then a couple of those actually include a chef, so you got your meals prepared for you. And then we've got a couple of ski trips -- one at Big Sky in Montana and the other one is in Breckenridge. And we have some other items that are giving away, actually Chef Rosario, which is also one of the donors of our event, and he's going to be doing food but he's also -- I want to give him special credit -- because he's also offering private chef dinners. So he'll have two chef dinners that he's going to auction off. One is for three couples and the other one's for like five to six people, so that's wonderful."
Topping off the event Thursday will be the "roundup raffle." In this scenario, he noted, four or five valuable items will be raffled off.
"One of them is from our presenting sponsor, which is Lara's Jewelry and Design, and she'll have five different items in there," he said. "She'll have a necklace, earrings, a bracelet and a couple of other things, and some of them are valued up to $6,000. And then we have a handmade bow that a local craftsman -- he makes bows by hand -- including the bow string. He makes that from the sinew, and then this particular bow is called the Plains Indian bow. ... And then we have a Henry rifle in there as well and then we have a couple of other things. In addition, we actually have a couple hunts for the outdoorsman. Of course, here in Arkansas we've got a lot of those. So we have a ram hunt as well as a bison hunt. So there's a wide range of different things we'll have here at the event and then all the moneys that's raised for that event, of course, goes to the Faces Foundation."
Hinz explained the process for how the patients qualify for the surgery, noting the "life-changing" quality it brings to the person. Once filling out an application, if accepted, the patient is dedicated to a specific number of volunteer work hours to help other nonprofit groups.
"Historically, it's 300 hours," he said. "Other nonprofits in the community -- they have to put their own sweat equity into that. Now the nice thing about that is that they can also take their family, friends, neighbors, church members. So we had one young man who had all of his classmates come and do some work at the Habitat for Humanity. We had another lady; her church members came and helped at First Step. So all of those hours count and then once those hours are completed, we do the surgery."
Dr. Daron Praetzel and his partner, Dr. Aaron Baldwin, perform the surgeries free of charge to the patient at the Arkansas Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Center at 200 McAuley Court. Money raised by the fundraising events helps cover the patients' costs.
"And then the real change is the individual," said Hinz. "You know, the end result is truly a lifestyle change. We see individuals that come in that have -- you know, they're very self-conscious of their facial deformities, and I use that word loosely. But they have a number of issues. They've been teased at school, they had one girl that actually dropped out of school because they had nicknamed her 'Bulldog.' We had another one, it took a half an hour to eat a bologna sandwich because his jaws didn't line up. And so what you find is, it not only changes that physical appearance immediately but a year later, two years later, like one of them that we've known now for four or five years, she went off to college, she changed her major, she's now very active in the community and interacts with people where, you know, her personality prior to that was a little bit more standoffish, you know, avoiding people. What you find is, in a case like that, this individual's -- that surgery -- changed their perspective of life. And it has changed the direction of their life and how they approach, you know, careers and even boyfriends.
Visit http://www.fixfaces.org for ticket information or contact Hinz at [email protected] or at 501-262-5272 for ticket or sponsorship information. Tickets are $75 per person and dress is formal Western attire (optional).
This article has been corrected since its original publication to correct the name of the presenting sponsor.