Super Sunday experience

Suzie Harrison

When friends come together, it’s usually to have fun and share

with each other, but this particular group of friends wanted to share

their resources for a good cause.

Thus was born the Lighthouse Guild, an organization that serves as

an auxiliary chapter of Olive Crest, which is dedicated to improving

the lives of abused and neglected children through a variety of

fund-raising efforts.

On Sunday, Jan. 26, the group will host its second Super Bowl

Extravaganza at the Newport Beach Marriott, with proceeds going to

Olive Crest Homes and Services.

Marcy McKenna serves as president, and her husband, David,

co-chaired the event. David is a successful screenwriter, with

“American History X,” “Blow” and the upcoming “S.W.A.T.” to his

credit.

Debbie Painter is the director of events. She and the rest of the

original group -- the McKennas, Painter’s husband, Robert, friend

Shawn O’Neill and Olive Crest volunteers Ken Kenny and Tonya Brown --

made it happen.

The Lighthouse Guild is now more than 40 members strong, including

this year’s chairs, Deanna Totten and Katie Heimark.

It all started with Debbie Painter’s desire to do more with her

time.

“I really wanted to find my passion,” Debbie Painter said. “I was

trying to find it and I came across Olive Crest. I thought, ‘This is

it. I found it.’ I worked for them about four years.”

Still, she wanted to do more.

“It was real. They had a need for our generation to help,” she

said.

It was when the dot-com company’s were doing so well, and she

thought that she needed to get these people involved.

“I thought, I have such an amazing group of friends in Newport,”

Debbie said. “First, I thought of Marcy and Dave McKenna. They were

doing charity work and hadn’t settled on one charity,” Debbie said.

Marcy McKenna, too, thought that there was something missing

across the board with their generation helping out.

“We need to get people in our age group to get charitable minded,”

Marcy McKenna said. “We wanted to do a fun event, thinking outside of

the typical fund-raising box -- to think of some type of event that

our generation would be excited about.”

The McKennas got the idea after going to an over-the-top Super

Bowl party in Las Vegas.

“It was on a grand scale, with entertainment and cheerleaders,”

Marcy said. “There were all these high rollers, and it was so

unfortunate that none of it was going to a good cause.”

They decided to take the concept and take it up a few levels.

They succeeded. Last year’s party netted more than $120,000 with

500 persons in attendance.

“It was such a small group to come together in such a short period

of time with no experience,” Debbie said. “We called ourselves the

little group that could.”

This year, the event will be hosted by actor Jerry O’Connell, star

of the new comedy “Kangaroo Jack.” O’Connell, most notable for his

performance in Jerry McGuire, is on the NBC show “Crossing Jordan.”

“Jerry is a friend of my husband and a really fun, great guy who

immediately said he was in,” Marcy said.

The band Sugar Ray will be doing an exclusive performance at the

after party. Back by popular demand are party favorites the Laker

Girls.

The members of Sugar Ray are all from the Newport Beach area and

went to Corona del Mar High School with Dave and Robert.

“It took a few phone calls, and everyone was real excited,” Marcy

said. “They all said, ‘How can we make this happen?’”

Marcy and Debbie pointed out that last year, everyone enjoyed the

football pools.

This year, they have added a “powder puff” girls’ pool for the

women. This pool includes pampering -- Botox is available, as is an

esteemed eyebrow specialist.

In the opportunity pools, instead of cash prizes, high-end items

such as a BMW MINI-Cooper, an exotic trip and other upscale valuables

will be awarded.

Besides the Super Bowl fete, throughout the year, the Lighthouse

Guild will be doing other charitable events for Olive Crest.

Members said that it’s doing stuff for the kids that keeps them

motivated to work hard at helping them in any way they can. Besides

fund-raising, they enjoy spending a lot of time with the children.

Debbie and Marcy said that the group came up with the name

Lighthouse Guild as a signal -- helping children find their way.

They also said that 88 cents on the dollar goes to the kids, which

they believe is rare in the charity world.

“Olive Crest is like my second family,” Debbie said. “I really

love them.”

The Super Bowl Extravaganza will be held at the Newport Beach

Marriott. A pre-game tailgate party will start at 1:30 p.m. at the hotel.

The post-game party featuring Sugar Ray will be at the Hard Rock

Cafe in Fashion Island. Only attendees of the Super Bowl fete will be

admitted to the concert.

Tickets are $100 and can be purchased by calling (949) 737-0335 or

at www.ocsuperbowl.com. Tickets will not be sold at the door. There’s

a 500-person limit.