Foundations celebrate future with fiesta

September 15, 2006

The International Community Foundation ?which last year made more than $4 million in grants to nonprofits in Mexico and other countries ?had its first binational fundraising gala here last Friday at the Kona Kai Resort.

The fiesta was co-hosted with the sister foundation of ICF: Fundación Internacional de la Communidad, based in Baja California.

SANDY HUFFAKER Mauricio Fernández Margain (left) with Roberta and Malin Burnham at the 2006 gala of the International Community Foundation and its sister foundation.

The two foundations will split the party's net of $150,000.

Co-chairs of the gala were Yolanda Walther-Meade and Randie Reinhart. Honorary co-chairs were Malin Burnham and Mauricio Fernández Margain.

The party was labeled “San Diego-Baja California: One Region Working Towards a Brighter Future.”

Leon Reinhart, chairman of the ICF and husband of Randie Reinhart, was on hand, and Malin Burnham's wife, Roberta, was there, too.

So were Christy Walton, Patty and Enrique Hambleton, Deborah Szekely, Ana Raquel and José Galicot, Mary Clark, Mirella and Jacinto Astiazarán, Mary Walshok, Luanne and Bob Kittle, Rita and Luis Cabrera, Sister RayMonda DuVall, Smira and Atul Patel, Maggie and Bob Watkins, Lucy Killea, and Karen Thaxton and Augie Gallego.

The celebration began with a VIP reception aboard the yacht America, docked at the Kona Kai Marina.

The general reception that followed featured a Mexican marketplace, piñata games, a silent auction and performances by Mariachi Mi México and a San Diego dance group.

Some of the guests in the crowd of more than 450 were Nancy Marlin and Fred Kolkhorst, Claudia Basurto, Stephen Weber, Anne Middleton, Monica and Richard Kiy (he is president and CEO of the International Community Foundation), Peggy Boeker, Armi and Al Williams, Barbara and Ezequiel Ezcurra, Judy and Alex McDonald, Bruce Blakley, Debi and Bob Kelly, and Jenny and Tom Fat.

Sue and Lyle Kalish were part of the party, along with David Nuffer, Claudia and Mario Garcia, Elisabeth and Alan Rubin, Irene and George Chandler, Gabriela Flores and Josh Lampl, Mary Moreno, Maria Antonieta Beguerisse, Elsa Escobar de Reyes, Mary Gunderson, Alma Lopez de Song, Anne McEnany, Conchita Valladolid, Gerald Myres, and Yolanda S. Walther-Meade, daughter of the gala's co-chair.