"Wine & Winter Wolves” Draws Big Crowd at Waccabuc!
Community rallies to help local nonprofit and celebrate the beginning of the Holiday Season – with Atka the Arctic Wolf in attendance!
On Thursday, December 4, the Wolf Conservation Center hosted a sold-out audience of 130 supporters at a highly successful holiday fundraiser -- Wine & Winter Wolves -- at the Carriage House of the Waccabuc Country Club.
“In these difficult economic times we were really apprehensive about holding a fundraiser,” explains WCC Executive Director, Deborah Heineman, “but obviously it was more important now than ever to make sure that the WCC – which has been a unique community resource for over a decade – had the means to continue our crucial mission of ecosystem education and species survival. What we did was reinvent last year’s very popular event by keeping the ticket price reasonable ($75), and figuring out a way to make sure that every cent of every ticket purchased would go directly to support our programs.”
To that end, the WCC reached out to local restaurants and merchants to ask them to sponsor “tasting tables.” “The response was inspiring,” reported Heineman. Cross River Wine Merchants, Bacio (Cross River), Le Chateau (South Salem), The Horse and Hound (South Salem), Passage to India (Mt. Kisco), The Fish Cellar (Mt. Kisco), Peter Pratt’s (Yorktown), 121 (North Salem), Myong (Bedford Hills), Haiku (Cross River) and The Flying Pig (Mt. Kisco) all immediately said they would be there, Café Svago (Ridgefield) ageed to provide organic coffee, and Susan Lawrence (Chappaqua), The Lil’ Chocolate Shoppe (Pleasantville), and Chappaqua Toffee, Le Chateau, and 121 agreed to provide delicious desserts. Cartwright and Daughters (Carmel) provided the plates and glasses, Vista Beer and Beverage provided soda, and Executive Printing (Elmsford) produced invitations – all completely free of charge to the Wolf Conservation Center.
Additional restaurants that couldn’t participate offered gift certificates, which were part of a “Chinese raffle” that raised an additional $2000. In addition to the wine and food tasting and the raffle, fine prints, photographs, paintings, drawings, jewelry -- all celebrating the beauty and nobility of the Wolf (or canines in general!) – were donated by collectors, artists and local merchants for a silent auction which brought in an additional $3000. And each work of art came with a framing certificate worth $50, courtesy of Chappaqua Framers! Fantastic background music was provided by The Riddles – the hot teen band of Horace Greeley High School (Chappaqua).
But the highlight of the evening was when Atka – one of the Wolf Center’s ambassador wolves – joined the party. Atka is always a hit, but really had them laughing and marveling last night when, instead of simply answering a question about the black spot that marks a scent gland on Atka’s tail, Managing Director Maggie Howell decided to let Atka demonstrate how wolves mask their scent by tossing a piece of the evening’s fare on the floor – which Atka proceeded to roll about in thoroughly before gobbling it down.
“This event literally took place completely through the generosity of the community – the people who attended, the food and wine vendors who participated, and the others who donated for both the raffle and the auction,” said Board Member, Martha Handler, who was the event’s chairperson. “It really makes me proud to live here.” And a good time was had by all!
