| |
1st
appeared 23 March 1999
Restaurant Opening to Benefit Children
Receiving Bone Marrow Transplants
Children who need bone marrow transplants are chef
Gordon Drysdale's "fine cause" as he hosts "Fine Eats, Fine Art, Fine
Music, Fine Cause" on April 16 to launch his new restaurant on Florida Street in San
Francisco.
The event will raise money for the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at Lucile Packard
Children's Health Services at UCSF, part of UCSF Stanford Health Care. Drysdale has
offered to donate the proceeds of the evening to help children and their families who come
for bone marrow transplants to treat deadly cancers and severe inherited immune diseases.
The benefit introduces "Gordon's House of Fine Eats," the newest of the Real
Restaurants group, whose other restaurants include Bix, Fog City Diner and Tra Vigne. Chef
and co-owner Drysdale is the former chef at Bix and current chef at Caffe Museo at the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as well as Modern Catering. For his new venture, he
conceived the idea of a restaurant that would showcase the work of local artists and
performers. The artworks on display on opening night will be selected from the works of
staff members of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
"We are delighted that Gordon Drysdale has decided to make his opening night an
opportunity to benefit our patients," said Morton J. Cowan, professor of pediatrics
at UCSF and founding director of the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Program. "These
funds will provide resources and support for our patients with life-threatening diseases,
to help them and their families manage during the lengthy hospitalization that is
necessary for each transplant."
The Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Program of Lucile Packard Children's Health Services
is one of the nation's largest, a nationally recognized leader for innovative and
specialized transplant methods. More than 300 children have received bone marrow
transplants at UCSF since 1982 to combat leukemia, neuroblastoma and other cancers, and to
treat certain metabolic disorders and inherited immune deficiency diseases.
A special wing of the children's 7th-floor ward at UCSF Stanford's Moffitt-Long Hospital
in San Francisco is devoted to seven bone marrow transplant rooms where special
precautions and highly purified air protect the children from infection during the period
when the treatment makes their immune systems most vulnerable. Over the course of a
treatment that can take many months, the program's doctors, nurses and child specialists
work closely with parents to care for each child and to help the family maintain as much
of a normal life as possible. Children even keep up with their schoolwork with the help of
the teacher on staff.
Together, the two LPCHS bone marrow transplant programs at UCSF and Stanford are the only
centers offering bone marrow transplants to children in Northern California. Cowan and his
colleagues at both LPCHS campuses maintain active research programs to seek improvements
in bone marrow transplants for children. "While survival rates vary by disease, the
majority of children who receive a bone marrow transplant can look forward to a normal
life," Cowan said. "However, fewer than half the children who have a disease
which can be cured with a bone marrow transplant have an appropriate donor.
"One of our highest priorities is to develop techniques that will allow us to be able
to offer a transplant to every child who needs one," he said.
"Fine Eats, Fine Art, Fine Music, Fine Cause" will be held from 6:30-10:30 p.m.
on Friday, April 16, to launch Gordon's House of Fine Eats at 500 Florida Street at
Mariposa in San Francisco. Tickets, which cost $75.00, include hors d'oeuvres and buffet
dinner, music, and fine art. Call 415/502-8389 for more information.
Links:
Lucile Packard Children's Health Services
Source: Janet Basu, News Services |
