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On Thursday night, June 7, 2007, at the Rich Forum in
Stamford, Connecticut, Grammy Award® winning musicians AMERICA
wowed almost 400 exclusive guests with an incredible concert,
singing all-time favorites like “Horse With No Name”, “Sister
Golden Hair”, “Ventura Highway”, “You Can Do Magic” and great
songs from their new hit album HERE AND NOW. The concert,
AMERICA’s first truly benefit effort, was part of a gala
evening for DANA’S ANGELS RESEARCH TRUST, raising over
$400,000, the largest sum raised from a single event by the
Greenwich, Connecticut based charity, which funds scientific
and medical research for a rare and fatal children’s disease,
Niemann-Pick type C. Dana’s Angels Research Trust’s, or DART’s
principal partner and benefactor for the gala was MasterCard
Worldwide.
Making the evening extra special were MCs Kathie Lee and Frank
Gifford, and Honorary Chairperson Michelle Phillips, actress
and singer, and former member of the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame band, The Mamas And The Papas. Two of the highlights of
the night were wonderful surprises, as guest Billy Baldwin,
who is married to Michelle Phillip’s daughter Chynna Phillips,
surprised and delighted the audience with the impromptu
auction of a walk-on part to his upcoming ABC-TV series, DIRTY
SEXY MONEY. Greatest of all of the memories came during
AMERICA’s concert performance when the audience was treated to
a truly MasterCard, priceless moment when Michelle Phillips
joined the band in its performance of The Mamas And The Papas
hit song “California Dreamin’.”
Other guests in attendance were Hannah Storm and Dan Hicks,
Bill Evans and his wife Dana, Mary Quick Pedersen, who hosted
the event’s patron party, Lynn Pedersen, Amy McCracken and
Jeanne Evert Dubin, tennis star Chris Evert’s sister.
A few of the other fabulous auction items at the pre-concert
gala included a one-hour hit with tennis champion Chris Evert;
an anonymously donated one-of-a-kind Tiffany & Co. platinum
and diamond necklace with a diamond pendant totaling over 15
carats; and table rights for a night at the famous “Rao’s”
restaurant in New York City. In addition to MasterCard
Worldwide, DART received other generous individual, corporate
and foundation support from Altus One Fund, Lois Pope, Mary
Ellen and Jeffrey Jay, VH1, Pels Charitable Trust, Beuth
Foundation, Cohen Foundation, Dove Givings Foundation and Wal*Mart.
DART was founded in 2002 by Phil and Andrea Marella of
Greenwich to fund medical research, medical education and
medical or hospital care for the treatment or cure of Niemann-Pick
type C disease, a genetic disorder in which harmful quantities
of cholesterol accumulate in cells, causing the cells to die.
The disease usually appears early in life and most children
with Niemann-Pick type C die by their early teens. Two of the
Marella’s four children, daughter Dana 13, and son Andrew 8,
have the disease.
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