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Chocolate Fantasia is no more

Wear the Love hopes to create long memories

In just a few days, many local women will be wearing the same necklace – and it won’t be a fashion faux pas. It will be a sign of support for women and children in housing crisis and fleeing abuse.

The Volunteers of America has created a new fundraiser this year, Wear the Love. Each year, a local artist will design a limited-edition, signature pendant, which people who make a minimum donation will receive while supplies last.

The fundraiser replaces Chocolate Fantasia, the VOA’s signature fundraiser for almost three decades.

“At Chocolate Fantasia, a lot of people didn’t even know what organization they were supporting,” VOA Executive Director Sarada Leavenworth said. “We hope every time they wear this pendant, they’ll be thinking about the over 400 women and children fleeing domestic violence or struggling with homelessness who turn to the Durango Community Shelter and Southwest Safehouse for shelter every year.”

During the kickoff Wear the Love 2015, for a minimum $60 donation, the donor will receive a glass pendant designed by local artist Karyn Gabaldon. Each pendant comes in a floral-print box with the personal story of an individual impacted by the services the shelter and safehouse provide. All proceeds benefit the campaign.

The Wear the Love campaign will officially begin Thursday with a free reception at the Taylor-Raymond Gallery, 835 Main Ave. A silent auction for one of Gabaldon’s paintings will be held, and it will also be a chance for attendees to learn more about what the services the Durango Community Shelter and Southwest Safehouse offer to local women and children.

While a chocolate extravaganza was fun at the time, it lived on only on one’s hips. The pendant will provide an ongoing reminder, Leavenworth said, of the work the Volunteers of America does and the need for ongoing community support.

abutler@durangoherald.com

If you go

The kickoff event for Wear the Love, the Volunteers of America’s new fundraiser, will take place from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the Taylor-Raymond Gallery, 835 Main Ave. Admission is free.



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