Mega Celebration Celebrates 40,000 Women Helped, Raises $741,000

Dress for Success’ Saturday night celebration at The Revaire was a feel good moment in so many ways. We count the numbers: 40,000 women served, two decades of helping women improve their lives, a sellout crowd of 600 and a record $741,050 in proceeds.

Applause, applause for DFS president Nancy Levicki, who with Susie Cunningham, founded the nonprofit in 1998. Further applause for Levicki who has stewarded the organization from a fledgling charity providing work clothes for women in need to a full blown service group that delivers a multitude of training programs geared to empowering women, helping elevate them to professional status.

Levicki was honored with multitudes of praise, in particular from board chairman Eric Blumrosen as well as via a tribute video. The success of the organization can be measured in the accomplishments to date in 2018 — 3,000 women have been provided business attire and 55 percent have landed jobs.

The night was filled with activity including a KHOU documentary, “A Common Thread,” featuring 11 Dress for Success client stories. KHOU news anchor Mia Gradney, a longtime DFS volunteer and board member, served as emcee of the evening that also honored Chevron and United Airlines for continued support.

The second half of the two-tiered fundraiser was a roving dinner party in which guests navigated through a taste-temping phalanx of chef stations from the likes of A Fare Extraordinaire, Brasserie 19, Max’s Wine Dive, Roka Akor and Ibiza. Total Wine and More provided vino while Deep Eddy, Roxor Gin and Herrudura Tequila delivered on the cocktails. Another draw was the silent auction — thank you Virginia Steppe and Alissa Maples — with such to-die-for possibilities as United first class air fare to anywhere in the world, a Total Wine and More VIP trip to Bordeaux and a stay at the Four Seasons Punta Mita.

Who: Randa and K.C. Weiner, Tali Blumrosen, Mary and Ben Patton, Rebekah and Gary Reaves, Niloufar and Amir Molavi, Kim and Ted Hartz, Courtney Hopson, Trish and Rock Morille, Kelli Kickerillo and Todd Forester, Donna and Norman Lewis, Claire Sullivan Jackson, Wendy and Dan Daboval, Carla Kneipp, and Maria and Graham Lowrey.