I thoroughly enjoyed the Santa Cruz AIDS Project Benefit that Lex, Kelly and Ethan supported on Sunday, January 27.  The two events (at 2pm and at 6pm) brought in $10,000.00 for the Santa Cruz AIDS Project - this was the goal they had set and all in the room were thrilled to have met it.  It seems that when only the 2pm show was planned that they had hoped to bring in $5,000.00.  They doubled this goal when the second show was added.  They said that this second show sold out in less than 24 hours.  The money came from ticket sales (the tickets said:  THANKS LEX!), raffle tickets and donations. It was very generous of Lex, Kelly, and Ethan to support this good cause.

The hall in Santa Cruz was not very large - I couldn't find out how many tickets were sold but think that not more than 500 people were allowed in per performance.  The 6pm crowd seemed mostly local.  It was all ages from babies to the gray-haired.  It looked like a number of families were in attendance.  It was a typical laid-back Santa Cruz kind of crowd.  (Santa Cruz is a hippie/surfer/laid back kind of place!) 

The Santa Cruz event was very mellow.  When we entered the room the one table set up for autographs was on the floor in front of the stage.  The line for this snaked in a circle around the room.  When you approached the table you came up to Kelly first, then Lex, then Ethan. Everyone got autographs from all three if they wanted. People were allowed to walk behind the table to get their photos taken with one or two of the Survivors after getting autographs.  Many people had photo cameras and/or video cameras.  The tickets also said:  Positive Spin Presents a Benefit for the Santa Cruz AIDS Project.  Positive Spin was described as an organization that does fund raising for various organizations around the area.  The event was held at the Santa Cruz Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Santa Cruz (a beach town). 

There were two raffles per show.  At the 6 pm show the first raffle was about 1 hour into the evening and the second was at the end of the evening.  Some of the things raffled:  Reebok pants and shorts from "Lex's extensive collection", matching adult and child t-shirts from a local Santa Cruz tattoo shop, signed photos of Lex, Ethan, and the entire Survivor 3 contestants, a signed magazine with the cover showing Brandon and the title "African Queen", two signed soccer balls (one by all 16 survivors, one by Lex, Ethan, and Kelly), two Tony Hawk skateboards (worth about $200.00 each - he's a famous  skateboarder), a Tony Hawk signed poster,  a t-shirt with a giraffe on the front signed by all Survivor 3 contestants except Frank and on the back a take-off of the Survivor logo with the wording:  "I partied with  -  and survived  -  Big Tom".   My family and I were thrilled that we won this last t-shirt and the signed Tony Hawk poster.

They also gave away 3 photos taken by Carl (an elephant, an African man, and they didn't show us the 3rd one) and autographed by him.  I thought this was a nice item to raffle off.  They also raffled off (individually) a yellow beaded bracelet, a red beaded bracelet, and a black necklace with a carved white pendant - all of these were items that Ethan had traded for when he went to the village in Africa to trade for the goats and other items.

Ethan and Kelly had gone to eat between the two shows with Lex's wife.  They walked to a local spot a few blocks away in downtown Santa Cruz.  People started lining up just before 5pm (it was cold) and we finally were let in about 6pm.  For the first 15 minutes or so only Lex was signing autographs and then Ethan and Kelly joined him.  There was a long line for this.  They were signing photo cards of Lex unless folks brought something else to sign.  

The Survivors  were all upbeat and friendly.  Ethan seemed shy and happy and Kelly and Lex were very outgoing and happy.  All three chatted with everyone who came up to the table and posed for photos when asked, even hugging folks for the photos.  I congratulated Kelly for being so intelligent on the show which she liked very much - she gave me a spontaneous hug and thanked me!  Lex overheard my comment and said I had been paying attention (to the show)!  When Lex was signing autographs by himself  his son River was 'helping' him and River said he wanted to sign autographs too so Lex showed him how.  

After about an hour of autographs there was the first raffle drawing of the evening.  After this a black and white film about Lex was shown (with great enthusiasm from the audience).  There was a nice, loud round of booing when T-Bird was shown voting for Lex on the show!.  After this there was a presentation by the Mayor of Santa Cruz to Lex for "Lex Van Den Berghe Day".  It was hard to hear the mayor so I'm assuming today was that day but I'm not sure!  Lex then made a short speech.  He said his thanks and then he talked a bit about AIDS and the benefit we were all attending.  Then he apologized to Kelly saying he "went a little goofy out there" and walked across the stage to hug her.  When he got back to the mike he said "everyone goes off their nut sometimes".    

At the end of his speech he talked about all who still wanted autographs and hadn't gotten them and said we all had to be out of the hall by 9pm and that he 'would sit out in the parking lot and sign autographs for all who hadn't gotten one' when the evening was over.  

At about 8pm Lex and his band Lucky Dog played for about 45 minutes, mostly their own music and I did recognize one Beatles song.  They sounded good.  Ethan left after Lex's music was over but Kelly and Lex continued to sign autographs while the last raffle drawing took place.  When we left about 9:25pm Kelly had stopped signing autographs but Lex was still at it!  Lex's wife and both his sons were in attendance all night but River was the most visible of these three.  Kelly, Ethan, and River were the ones pulling the raffle tickets out of the snoopy bucket!  The band that played first was Deuces Wild, a local band of younger teen boys.

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