Fundraiser helps continue legacy of Betty and Leonard Phillips Deaf Action Center

The community will be the winner at Las Vegas Night 2015, which benefits the Betty and Leonard Phillips Deaf Action Center. Wine Country Bistro will host the event at 7 p.m. Dec. 12.

Tickets are $250 per person and include $500 in chips to play games with professional dealers. There will be a buffet prepared by executive chef Jason Brady and an open bar. Dress is black-tie optional.

The popularity of this event begins with atmosphere, as Wine Country Bistro will be transformed into a hip Las Vegas casino and night club.

Collin Phillips, Las Vegas Night event chair and grandson of the late Betty and Leonard Phillips, said he was pleasantly surprised at the number and caliber of auction items and sponsors that have rolled in this year.

“It’s an honor to serve and continue the legacy,” he said. “The community response has been great.”

Sandi Kallenberg is the daughter of Betty and Leonard Phillips and a founding board member. “Las Vegas Night is a blast,” she exclaimed. “This is the first big party of the season. Chef Jason Brady is phenomenal. Everybody dresses up and it goes on to the wee hours.”

“It’s just fun,” Phillips added. “People get into bidding wars on auction items, then we head back to the table. Sometimes we bid so high against each other we realize we have to consolidate our chips at the end of the night to buy the item. There’s a real camaraderie.”

“There are black jack tables and roulette tables,” Phillips added. “There are two auctions, one cash or credit card and the silent auction. You get your chips at the door and you get paid out two to one and you can use those chips for the silent auction.”

Auction items include a New York Fall Fashion Experience with airfare and three nights in a deluxe room at the Columbia/ Princeton Club, and a golf package with private jet transportation to Boot Ranch in Texas Hill Country. Opportunities to hobnob with celebrities are up for bid, with a Louisiana Film Prize package and a four night stay at a condo on the slopes in Deer Valley, Utah. There’s also a water feature from Hoogland’s Landscape and jewelry from Sid Potts.

All the high stakes, however, go to support services for the deaf in Northwest Louisiana.

“Deaf Action Center was established to fill a need and that was to provide interpreting services,” Executive Director David Hylan said. Trying to communicate without an interpreter leaves many deaf people feeling isolated and frustrated. “Sometimes the situation is critical,” Phillips said. “Having access to an interpreter can even save lives.”

“You can’t imagine the frustration,” Kallenberg said. “Sometimes there are two deaf parents with a hearing child, or two hearing parents and a deaf child and the frustration is heartbreaking.”

“Communication is the key,” Hylan said. “An interpreter is not making decisions for them or controlling the situation. They are simply a facilitator between two cultures and between two communities.”

Hylan said the center is the largest employer of interpreters in North Louisiana. “We have full-time interpreters on staff but we also use video remote services that utilizes under-employed interpreters in other areas and video conferences them into, say, a local bank or emergency room,” he said. “We have clients all over the world, people who access the services we provide through video and webcast training.”

One of Hylan’s favorite examples of clients helped through the Deaf Action Center is actually a couple. “They knew each other when they were much younger in Baton Rouge at a school for the deaf,” he said. “Then they were separated when they graduated and moved on. Their families were extremely poor and had no resources. They were referred to us in order for us to teach them how to live independently. When they were reunited here, it really started a united front for the both of them to live successfully, work together and try to build a family. They ended up getting married. They have aged and now they have health problems, now. Their entire lives as a couple, they’ve encountered situations and problems and we’ve been there with them.”

Hylan was quick to point out, “We do not make decisions for anyone. Dignity is allowing individuals to make their own choices. The deaf community is coming out of a very disenfranchised marginalized life when they were oppressed. The center is pushing very hard to reverse that and give them opportunities to flourish.”

–- Susan Reeks

more information:

To learn more on Las Vegas Night or the Betty and Leonard Phillips Deaf Action Center, go to www. deafactioncenter.org or call 425- 7781.