The Civilized Life in Sarasota: Planned Parenthood's High Tea at High Noon

I have proudly attended High Tea at High Noon for many years. I think it is important for us to acknowledge causes we believe in and I believe in Planned Parenthood. It is always amazing to me the shear number of women in our community who financially support this event at Patron and above levels even when they know they won't be able to attend. It is truly a wonderful thing.

Linda Salomon created charming artwork for the invitation, as she does every year. This one was particularly fanciful with the inclusion of ballet dancers with the ladies having tea. There were four chairs for the event - Peggy Abt, Kathy Bush, Mindy Mast, and Carol Williams.

Everyone sits at long tables of 15 -20 on each side and food is passed family style. Some years they have buffets set up, but I think this works better so that you don't have to stand in line and there is less commotion with everyone staying seated instead of getting up and down all the time. Michael's On East did the catering and the salad and the roasted vegetables were especially good, as were the desserts. There were also some fairly generic tea sandwiches - some as small croissants and some typical with the crusts cut off. I normally am not a fan of having a plate with several small desserts on it, but these were small-sized ones of some of MOE terrific regular desserts, so they were quite yummy.

Fashion maven, Marsha Panuce produced and narrated the fashion show with clothing/accessories from Dream Weaver, Foxy Lady, June Simmons Designs, and L.Kids. Lots of pretty local models including Dr. Anne Chauvet and Leibe Gamble and we can't forget the darling children. They were all cute, but the first little girl Alexa, was the cutest thing ever with her waving and blowing kisses.

In between each store's offerings, dancers from Sarasota Ballet did short performances. Most of them were trainees, but they were quite good and the one dancing from the Nutcracker music looked like she literally belonged on the top of a little girl's jewelry box.

The highlight of the day was the end of the fashion show, as Barbara Zdravecky, PP CEO and Jan Chester, PP Sr. VP modeled beautiful evening clothes. Marsha commented that she had been trying to get that to happen for years and they finally did it! They both looked terrific!

Lots of fab ladies were there in addition to the ones photographed below including Veronica Brady, Susan Brainerd, Carolyn Johnson, Lisa Rubinstein, Beth Waskom, Jane Smiley, Dr. Mary Elmendorf, Sue Renfrew, Joy Weston, Janet Steele, Joan Paru, Fran Lambert, Linda DiGabriele, Jaymie Carter, Joyce Tate, Lee Peterson, Mary Anne Servian and one of only a handful of males, Keith Fitzgerald.