InterContinental Miami Hosts The Kick-Off Party For 23rd Annual Make-A-Wish South Florida Ball

L to R: Norman Wedderburn, Shareef Malnik, & Robert Hill
L to R: Norman Wedderburn, Shareef Malnik, Gabrielle Anwar, Robert Hill

Make-A-Wish Southern Florida kicked off their charity event season Thursday, September 28th with InterContinental Miami celebrating the 23rd Annual InterContinental Miami Make-A-Wish VIP Kickoff party, which was also held at the InterContinental Miami.

This party serves as the pre-event for the Mystical Music Box gala on Saturday November 4th, which will be headlined by Grammy Award-winning artist Lenny Kravitz. Actress and filmmaker Gabrielle Anwar will host the event and NBC’s The Voice winner Alison Porter will be kicking off the night.

“We put on a great event that is meant to be a lot of fun, but at the end of the day we also want to raise money to make sure that Make-A-Wish Southern Florida can do what it needs to do to grant the wishes of every child with a critical illness in our community”, said Robert Hill, galat host and General Manager of the InterContinental Miami. It was then announced that tickets to the gala had been sold out, thanks to all the excitement around Kravitz and a 13-piece band.

Robert Hill welcomed guests to the elegant party that featured food stations by InterContinental Executive Chef Klaus Happel that were decorated with Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans. Some of the various dishes were Duck Rillette, Foie Gras Mousse and pop art dessert stations with Cheesecake Lollipops.

Guests were treated to a special DECO Productions dance performance choreographed by New Century Dance Company. Notable guest of the evening included the Ball Chairman, Board Chair and Founder of Chairman’s Challenge Society Shareef Malnik and 2011-2016 Ball emcee and Chairman’s Society member Gabrielle Anwar; President and CEO of Make-A-Wish Southern Florida, Norman Wedderburn; Creative Director Maxwell Blandford; socialite/philanthropists Andrew and Sandy Alfano, Jack and Jennifer Barnes, Sheila Cesarano, Ben Eisenberg, Amy Federman, Eugene Frenkel, Mayte Fernandez, Terry and Fred Jove, Danielle Gonzales, Ameen and Zainab Killidar, Gideon Kimbrell, Andrew Mandala, Joseph Perez, Brett Rose and Jeremiah Gutierrez, Craig and Ashley Sienema, Jodi Siravo, Stephen and Gwenn Vecchitto, Taylor and Lisa Gang, Danny Jelaca, and Tara Solomon.

The night ended with a speech by Make-A-Wish Southern Florida Wish recipients father, Carlos Moreira who’s son, Davi, had his Wish granted to visit Disney after recovering from leukemia. With tears in his eyes, Moreira described how happy it made his son to have this extraordinary experience when facing one of the toughest challenges of his young life.

DECO Productions dance performance.
DECO Productions dance performance.