Kota Kinabalu: A high-energy 90-minute performance from Melbourne-hailed BigCityBeat corporate show band unleashed a night of electrifying "vibes" to the Palliative Care Association's annual fundraising charity dinner which raised a net sum of RM340,000 at the Sutera Magellan Grand Ballroom Friday night. A 100-table of spellbound donors demanded not just one encore but half a dozen which were all honoured!
As stunning lead female vocal J'amie Holland belted out an all-time Whitney Houston's hit "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" to cap the night, it sent a frenzy of young and old, doctors of both genders, racing to the dance floors for a whale of a night.
All 10 members of BigCityBeat, including founder-cum-lead male vocal Brain Rault received deserved bouquets from association members some of whom were patients.
President Margaret Lim said the association paid BigCityBeat RM80,000 for the show.
"But I think the rate is very reasonable because there are 10 of them," she noted.
An auction itself raised RM30,000 when highest bidder Datuk Gordon Leong parted RM11,000 for artist Zaimie Sahibil's acrylic painting entitled "Green Turtle", Eliza Goh paid RM9,000 for Francis Cheong's "Golden Day Lilies", while Minister for Resource Development and Information Technology Datuk Dr Yee Moh Chai paid RM10,000 for a 1924 Montblanc Meisterstuck Le Grand Traveller Fountain Pen donated by Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman.
The PCA was founded to care for those with advanced incurable cancers but has since expanded its care to all with terminal illness.
It also runs its Home Care Programme in collaboration with the Palliative Care Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
"We need at least RM400,000 a year to fund our work," Margaret said.
"We depend on this yearly event (fundraising charity dinner) to raise most of the funding required for the Home Care Programme," Datuk Victor S. Paul, Patron of PCA noted.
These contributions have made it possible for PCA to provide palliative care to over 2,000 patients and their families, Paul added.
"We get the balance needed from other donors (such as a grant from Muis) and also the Ministry of Health gives us RM100,000 a year. So it is enough to run our work," said Margaret.
However, the PCA doesn't have a premise of its own but operates from a JKR quarters.
"In fact, we just received a letter that we have to move out in three years," Margaret said, meaning the next big need means constructing a permanent building of their own.
Hence, the hunt for a site in Kota Kinabalu is on, Margaret said.
Datuk Dr Ranjit Matthew Oommen was the charity dinner's organising chairmen.
