The Garden of Eve will be in full bloom for the second straight year. Howard Brown and the Lesbian Community Care Project will present their one-of-a-kind event on May 15, this year at Christy Webber’s award-winning eco-industrial home, Rancho Verde, 2900 W. Ferdinand.
Webber donated her entire facility for the area’s largest annual LGBT women’s event, which raises money for Howard Brown and the LCCP to continue to provide medical services to LGBT women.
This year’s event will feature a reception and pre-reception with food tasting from more than 20 local chefs and restaurants, a silent auction and live entertainment as well as a DJ, aerialists, flag and fire dancers and last year’s big hit: nude body-painted garden pixies.
Kat Fitzgerald, event co-chair and Windy City Times photographer, said that last year’s experience gave the even co-chairs, known as “the fab four,” an idea of what needed tweaking to make the night even more memorable. She promises this year’s festivities will be “bigger, better and more fantabulous.”
The move to Webber’s private location will assure plenty of time for all the festivities. Hayride tours will also be available of the whole ranch, but to spice them up, Fitzgerald said singers will be dressed as gondoliers to serenade and entertain riders. Headlining the live entertainment will be singer/songwriter Marnie Alton of Logo’s Exes & Ohs.
“The key to all of this is that it’s bigger and better and that we focused more on the entertainment,” Fitzgerald said. “Last year was really a learning experience for us and this year we worked out a lot of the kinks.”
The pre-reception is 6-7 p.m.; then, the main event begins. Premier tickets, which include access to both the reception and pre-reception, are $200 each while main garden event tickets are $100. To purchase tickets or for more information on what’s included for either ticket, visit www.gardenofeve-chicago.org.