Medical Students to Host Annual City Lights Gala

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 25, 2015

CONTACT:     Suzanna Cisneros, suzanna.cisneros@ttuhsc.edu

(806) 743-2143

Medical Students to Host Annual City Lights Gala

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine (TTUHSC) first-year students will host the 18^th Annual Lubbock City Lights Charity Ball at 6:30 p.m. May 2 at the Overton Hotel, 2322 Mac Davis Lane.

Executive co-chairs for the event are Nerissa Dsilva and Nuvneet Khandelwal, first-year medical students. Dsilva said the students take pride in getting involved in a community event.

“It’s a privilege to contribute to this community by supporting deserving charities that provide services for the City of Lubbock,” Dsilva said. “This gala is a tradition for our medical students to remember the importance of giving back.”

Khandelwal said this year’s event offers fun for the community.

“More than $350,000 have been raised in the past 17 years through Lubbock City Lights,”  Khandelwal said. “We want to raise the most we can for these deserving charities.”

The Lubbock City Lights Charity Ball will feature live and silent auctions accompanying dinner, drinks and dancing with all proceeds to going to the following charities:

• The Free Clinic is a student-run initiative that offers medical services to the uninsured community of Lubbock, every Wednesday evening from 6 to 9 p.m. Each week, medical students and health care volunteers provide acute medical care, health education and social resource counseling.

• Family Promise is a nonprofit organization committed to helping low-income families achieve lasting independence. The problem of poverty is complex and will not yield to a simple solution or a quick fix. It requires an integrated approach that begins with meeting immediate needs but reaches much further to help people achieve independence and to alleviate the root causes of poverty.

• The Children’s Rainbow Program is held at Lubbock Impact on Wednesday evenings. The goal of the program is to introduce underprivileged children to a variety of healthy foods/nutrition and healthy living in a fun and interactive manner. In doing this, the program hopes that the children will learn to incorporate these foods into their daily diets and begin forming healthy lifelong habits.

• The Center for Super Heroes is developing critically needed services to reduce the long-term effects of adverse childhood experiences, particularly child abuse and neglect. The challenges faced by these children are significant and varied. This project creates an environment of collaboration and creativity to address previously insurmountable obstacles.

• The American Cancer Society provides free support services to cancer patients, health systems and corporations. Some of their patient service provides lodging, including Hope Lodge Lubbock; transportation assistance; support groups; wigs; resource and referral services; Personal Health Manager kits; and cancer information free of charge to patients and their families.

Prices for the Lubbock City Lights Charity Ball are $150 for individuals and $60 for students. Cost for a table of 10 is $1,200.  Sponsorships are available at different levels.

For more information or to purchase tickets for the Lubbock City Lights Charity Ball, visit www.lubbockcitylights.org or email lubbockcitylights@ttuhsc.edu.

For more breaking news and experts, follow @ttuhscnews on Twitter.

-30-