MyPhillyLawyer sponsoring Variety’s Oct. 19 “Kids With Heart Talent Show”

MyPhillyLawyer is proud to announce that it is serving as the Presenting Sponsor for the 2011 “Kids With Heart Talent Show,” which is hosted by Variety – The Children’s Charity of Greater Philadelphia.

The event will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 19, at The Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut Street, starting at 6 p.m. and will feature performances by many of the children who are clients of the longtime children’s charity here in the Delaware Valley. The annual Talent Show fundraiser event is being held for the third time in four years. Variety works with children who have physical or cognitive disabilities, including visual impairments, autism or cerebral palsy.

“This event is about showcasing our kids in a way that’s fun and allowing them to shine with their talents,” says Marissa Tabak, special events coordinator for the Philadelphia area chapter of Variety. “Other kids participate in school and other talent shows all the time but often they don’t include children with disabilities. You don’t see them do this as often because either they don’t get asked or they’re not learning different talents on their own.”

For the participating children, the event is like a gala opening night.

“The kids get the full celebrity treatment, with dressing rooms and their hair and make-up done by people from local salons,” Tabak says. “There’s also a red carpet for them to walk on as they enter, and a limousine that picks the children up in the back of the building and takes them to the red carpet. Then there are photographers and paparazzi who take photos as they enter the theater. It’s really great, like they are stars.”

Variety – The Children’s Charity of Greater Philadelphia has been serving children with disabilities since 1935. The group’s programs and services are designed to best address the physical, social, medical, educational, and recreational needs of their clients without regard to economic status, race, creed, gender, or type of disability, according to the charity. Variety works with children from birth to age 18 who have temporary and/or permanent disabilities resulting from injury, illness, or congenital conditions.

The Talent Show event is a key fundraiser for the group’s after-school programs for children with disabilities in the Philadelphia area so they can go somewhere after school for homework help and other activities, Tabak says. The event also benefits a year-round camp run by Variety where children can be involved in fun activities, job skills workshops and more.

All the money generated by the Talent Show will go toward sustaining and expanding those kinds of programs, she says.

For the charity, the Talent Show is especially sweet because the group has a longtime connection to the world of entertainment, according to Tabak.

“It’s really important to us,” she says. “Variety has its roots in show business. It was started by a group of actors in 1927 in Pittsburgh. A group of performers there one day opened a theater door and found an abandoned baby in a basket with a note from her mother. The note said that the mother had eight other children at home and couldn’t take care of them all, and that she’d always heard of the good hearts of people in show business.”

So the actors took the baby in and later began a charity to help less fortunate children back then, Tabak says. Eventually, Variety became a group that worked to help children with special needs or who were suffering from poverty.

The evening’s Talent Show, filled with music, dance and other fun, will be emceed by legendary Philadelphia entertainer, Eddie Bruce of Eddie Bruce Music. Some 400 guests are expected.

Tickets for the Kids With Heart Talent Show fundraiser are $40 each for just the show, or $60 each for the show and the VIP Event and Red Carpet pre-show gala. The VIP Cocktail Hour begins at 6 p.m. Oct. 19, followed by the show at 7 p.m.  Tickets can be purchased online on Variety’s Web site.

“We’re just very excited to have MyPhillyLawyer be a part of this year’s event,” Tabak says. “I think it will be a really fun event for their staff, too.”

MyPhillyLawyer is participating this year as part of its efforts to continue to give back to the Philadelphia community, says managing partner Dean I. Weitzman. MyPhillyLawyer also has participated in events and sponsorships with other community groups, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and the Martin Luther King Jr. Association for Non-Violence Inc. in Philadelphia.

“We here at MyPhillyLawyer are very excited and honored to sponsor Variety –The Children’s Charity of Greater Philadelphia as part of their 2011 Kids With Heart Talent Show,” Weitzman says. “It will be a fun night for the children and a proud moment for their parents and families. We wish the performers good luck and can’t wait to see them light up the stage that night.”

The Philadelphia chapter of Variety is one of the largest charities in the Delaware Valley. Recently, the chapter was named the number one chapter in the country by the national office of Variety. The local chapter serves children with physical and/or developmental disabilities in the following counties:

Pennsylvania: Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, Montgomery, and Philadelphia

New Jersey: Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Mercer, Ocean, and Salem

Delaware: New Castle, Kent, and Sussex.