Snowball raises $240,000 to support kids with HIV/AIDS

The Event: The whole of Chicago’s Field Museum was standing-room-only on January 28 as 2,300 civic-minded young professionals turned out for the 29th annual Snowball benefitting the Pediatric and Adolescent HIV and AIDS programs of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. Put on by the hospital’s Junior Council, the event welcomed more than 30 top area restaurants, breweries and vintners to round out the edges of a celebratory evening that has done so much over the past third of a century to aid children.

Cause célèbre: “We’re trying to be as inclusive as possible (because) our whole thing is we want as many people involved as possible,” said Annie Hudson of Lake Forest, president of Junior Council. Founded one year after the infectious diseases clinic, collectively the Council has raised more than $1.5 million dollars for this, the largest clinic specializing in adolescent and pediatric HIV/AIDS in the country.

“This benefit actually provides money to support children (in our care) who either have a lapse in their insurance or need some tests that insurance isn’t covering,” explained William J. Muller of Oak Park, attending physician in infectious diseases and assistant professor of pediatrics at Lurie.

For board member Hilary Murphy of Chicago whose parents had worked in Kenya helping people get access to retroviral drugs and educating on HIV/AIDS, becoming involved with JC was a given.

“I was really excited when I discovered (the Junior Council),” said Murphy who was a teacher for two years. “Kids are definitely a passion (and) my family has done a lot of work with HIV/AIDS in Africa so coming to the States and seeing the way it affects kids here, how an eight-year-old is grappling with this disease that is not his fault, is really interesting.”

Bottom Line: Snowball raised $240,000.