Get giving at the Brewer’s Ball

All those dang breweries and restaurants come together with a bunch of rising-star young professionals to give you the best of Richmond. All in return for your support for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

June 16, 2015; 3:00 PM • by Susan Howson

This Thursday, June 18th, the second annual Brewer’s Ball–an event hosted by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation–hits Richmond in two of its favorite spots in an effort to help raise funds and promote awareness of a serious disease.

Nope, it’s not a craft beer and doughnut festival (although I hope a light bulb just went off atop someone’s head, because every single person I know would attend that). But it IS an evening that showcases craft beer and remarkable young professionals.

Yeah! Richmond loves those too!

Executive Director of the Virginia chapter of CFF, Terri Quinan is excited about honoring these men and women who were nominated by one committee, decided upon by another, and asked to raise $2,500 each for the foundation. She can rattle off the names of all 12, who hail from vastly different industries.

“The event is really a two-tier, double-dipping event, so to speak. It does great things for us, but provides a lot of networking and exposure for these young professionals,” she explains. The lucky dozen meet the cystic fibrosis specialists at VCU as well as the leaders of the Foundation, and they’re treated to professional and personal development care of the Frontier Project.

Plus, movers and shakers attend the Ball itself, which reflects the changing landscape of philanthropy–instead of a stuffy black tie event, the party is literally the exact opposite. “It’s colorful cocktail,” says Quinan. “Doesn’t that sound like fun?” It does, actually. Everyone, particularly the men, I’m told, wear a lot of bright colors. Clashing, not-clashing, who cares! Giving has become more fun and more impactful–not to mention more creative.

Scott Jones of Triple Crossing Brewery is both an honoree and a giver of beer at this event (they’ll be pouring their popular Falcon Smash IPA). Cystic fibrosis hits close to home for him, as a colleague of his has lived with the disease all her life. Her positive outlook has been an inspiration for Jones, who’s always wanted the brewery to give back to the community, but found this type of outreach particularly meaningful and impactful.

“Meeting the families, learning their personal experiences with CF, and seeing what the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is really doing to help them—that’s been the most helpful part of the whole process,” said Jones, who, like the other honorees, is working hard to try to complete his fundraising by Thursday.

About the disease

Quinan’s close friend–who has two nephews with CF–approached her about heading up the Virginia chapter of the Foundation. She’d been working in fundraising for Catholic education but was intrigued by the amount of progress that CFF had made since its beginnings in 1955. “A lot of times the disease was misdiagnosed as ‘failure to thrive’ in babies,” she explains. “But now because of the work of the Foundation, which only receives private donations, we’ve raised life expectancy from under five years old to 41.”

It’s not an easy ride for CF patients–they’ve inherited a gene that causes CF, which affects their lungs and digestive system, coating both with a layer of thick mucus that makes breathing and digesting food extremely difficult. But progress has been heartening over the last half-century.

“In 2012, for example,” Quinan related. “CFF-funded scientists working with pharmaceutical companies came up with a drug that actively treats the underlying cause of CF. And it’s now been approved for children under 12. The affected cells are folded, and the drug goes in and unfolds that cell, allowing it to rise to the surface and let chlorides pass through it.”

That’s pretty amazing cellular-level magic.

About the event

Eleven Richmond restaurants and an equal number of breweries agreed (including Stone!). The breweries will choose a beer or two (Triple Crossing’s own Scott Jones is one of the honorees, too!), and the restaurants will share one or two dishes, while 24 items are silent-auctioned and everybody (including the mayor) hangs out listening to Sturgeon City. If you win the event’s raffle, you could snag two American Airlines vouchers to fly anywhere in the world. Oh, and you’ll get to meet an ambassador with cystic fibrosis who just graduated from college.

How to attend, get involved, or otherwise be supportive

Know any of the folks on this page? If you do (or even if you don’t), click through to their individual pages and help them reach their fundraising goals. You’ll have an option to include a ticket to the Ball as well.

Or simply buy a ticket. It’s $75, and includes all your foods and drinks. $45 is tax-deductible. Do so before the end of the day on Wednesday, June 17th!