Over at Samuel Lynne Galleries in the Design District, more than 200 items were up for auction at the Purses With A Purpose event Tuesday, benefiting Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Dallas. Among them: beautiful bags by Beijo, Gianni Bernini, Anne Klein and Michael Kors.
In addition to the purses were jewelry and services, as well as a wine pull.
Since it was filled to the gills with females, it was only appropriate that Pinky’s, the all-gal valet service, was hustling vehicles. And hustle they were. The doors had hardly opened and the lineup at the check-in was backed up all the way.
Under the direction of Kathaleen Bauer, chair of the volunteer host committee, the third annual Purses event aimed to raise $80,000, up from about $65,000 in 2011 and $34,000 the year before. The proceeds go toward CCCS’s community outreach and financial-education efforts for low-income women.
There’s no doubt there’s a need. CCCS served 73,000 clients last year, two-thirds of them women. Many have been struggling with long-term unemployment, mortgage delinquencies or home foreclosures in the wake of the Great Recession. One CCCS client is 62-year-old Sherry Maffia, who was interviewed in front of at least 150 Purses guests by NBC 5 morning anchor Deborah Ferguson.
Maffia, an administrative assistant who lives in Carrollton, said she’s been working to pay off $15,000 in debt she incurred over five years. She wasn’t out spending lavishly, but trying to pay off her mother’s funeral bill and take care of a mentally-disabled brother, among other things. Thanks to the help of CCCS counselors, Maffia said, she should be debt-free by December.
Sherry’s story was also making headlines nationally that night, as she was the subject of a TV report by CBS’s Scott Pelley.
Photos by Jeanne Prejean
yvonne says
an amazing service that has helped so many.. regain their lives.. and their SANITY!