Little Pink Houses of Hope bringing fundraising event to Wilmington

Flyer+for+the+fundraising+event+

Flyer for the fundraising event

Veronica Wernicke, Assistant Opinion Editor

On March 1, the North Carolina non-profit organization Little Pink Houses of Hope [LPHOH] held a meeting on the UNC Wilmington’s campus.

The meeting began with LPHOH planning and discussing the logistics of their fundraising event which will be hosted on Sunday, June 10 at River Front Park in Downtown Wilmington.

Dinner along the river is the plan for the fundraising event. A long dinner table will stretch along the street in front of the river starting on Water St. In addition to a dinner, there will be a cocktail hour beforehand, an auction, a few speakers and time for mingling and dancing.

LPHOH provides a free week at the beach for families that have a family member with breast cancer. The organization was started in 2011 by Jeanine Patten-Coble after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009 and was “struck” by calling from God to start LPHOH.

Currently, there are over 16 different retreats all over the US — five in North Carolina and one in South Carolina. The closest retreats to the Wilmington area are held in Pleasure Island, NC — aka Carolina Beach, NC — in April, Oak Island, NC in September, and Myrtle Beach, SC in Oct.

“We have so many retreats on the East Coast and especially our North and South Carolina Beaches. We thought that by having it in Wilmington, we would be raising more awareness of our Organization in other surrounding areas: Wilmington and Wrightsville. We have a great team there that can help support us in making the Wilmington area a possible major fundraising area for Little Pink,” said Little Pink Board Chair Kenny Martin.

In attendance at the meeting were founder and President Patten-Coble, Martin, Development Director LeKeshia Franklin, UNCW Dean of Students Mike Walker, UNCW students, Carolina Beach and Wilmington community members.

“I feel this will be the beginning for other areas in doing the same fundraising for us. I feel that we have found the perfect place to spearhead our growth in the future,” said Martin. “Wilmington is a beautiful place and the downtown waterfront location is outstanding. So far, we have had some people to jump on board in helping us make this first event a great one.”

Outside of the planning meeting, LPHOH is also looking to work with UNCW students in order to help raise funds for either the Wilmington event or retreats. Whether that is through sorority and fraternity philanthropies, working with cancer-specific student organizations, holding fundraiser events, or any other ways.

“It gives our students an opportunity for philanthropy,” said Dean Walker. “It gives them an opportunity to support a really important organization and it is also really healthy for UNCW to have these types of relationships with our community particularly with really good causes.”

To find out more about LPHOH and how you can help you can visit either their website https://www.littlepink.org/ or like the Little Pink Carolina Beach/Wilmington Community Facebook page.

To purchase tickets you can visit www.littlepink.org/wilmington. There are only 150 tickets — each ticket costs $100 — available for this event.