Two comedians — local funnyman and Comedy Central veteran — cracked jokes the other night to help a benefit for live up to its name.
Laugh Yourself Blue, coordinated by Renee Ortiz, brought 500 people to the for an evening that raised money for a serious cause: Firefly’s work in transforming the lives of children with autism.
“When first being told their child might be autistic, families are desperate for information about what to do, where to go, how to help their child,” notes Firefly’s president and CEO, Jason Romero. “Firefly provides a central point of information, even for families whose children are not enrolled at Firefly.”
The latest research, Romero adds, indicates that 1 in 42 boys and 1 in 68 girls under the age of 8 are being diagnosed with autism.
In addition to the comedy show, Laugh Yourself Blue included a surprise award presented to Diane Raba, a nine-year member of the Firefly board, by Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia and former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Salazar and his wife, Hope, have a granddaughter with autism and have supported Firefly since her diagnosis in 2010.
“It is impossible to describe the difference 2 ½ years at Firefly made in her life and ours,” Ken Salazar said. “She uses sign language to communicate, and reads, writes, does math problems and aces all her spelling tests at Escuela Tlatelolco.”
The Salazars were honorary chairmen for Laugh Yourself Blue, along with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock; Ron Zappolo; and Sandy Wolf, vice president of the .
Hancock’s director of communications, Rowena Alegria, was there to present a proclamation declaring April 16 Firefly Autism Laugh Yourselves Blue Day.
Firefly’s vice president of social responsibility and development, Jesse Ogas, joined board president Gary Moore in helping welcome such guests as Denver City Councilwoman Debbie Ortega; Angie Malpiede; Jamie Torres, deputy director of Denver’s Department of Human Rights and Community Relations; Karen Nakandakare, senior diversity specialist at ; disability adviser Betty Lehman; president Rod Tafoya; Lifestyles Catering chief Lawrence French with his parents, Jane and Lawrence; Bob Nogueira, senior human relations director for ; Kasia Iwaniczko MacLeod and David MacLeod, chief information security officer and vice president for information technology operations at ; master of ceremonies Eric Goodman; and Mark and Amy Bittner, whose 9-year-old son is thriving after graduating from Firefly. Like Goodman, she’s a member of the Firefly board.
Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314, jdavidson@denverpost.com or twitter.com/joannedavidson
Honor goes to attorney sheila gutterman
Family law specialist Sheila Gutterman is the recipient of the 2014 Athena Award, the highest honor given by the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce. Joanne Davidson has more about the presentation, including names of the 20 finalists, in the Mile High Style blog: blogs.denverpost.com/ style
