Feast of Chocolate a sweet success

Alicia Tolby took her mom to the fourth annual Feast of Chocolate at the Nevada State Library and Archives Saturday as a gift for Valentine's Day. Her mom, Jill, was swamped all day Friday delivering floral arrangements for other people's Valentine gifts through her courier service De-Stress Express.

Alicia, 17, said her favorite chocolate treat was the "dip your own" strawberry in dark chocolate offered by DW's Restaurant while her mom favored the chocolate cake brought by Adele's restaurant.

Saturdays' all-you-can-eat event from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. is an annual fund-raiser for the American Association of University Women's Capital Branch.

The American Association of University Women's mission, according to capital branch co-chair Linda Hiebert Sekiguchi, is to promote equity in education for all women and girls, encourage life-long education and promote positive societal change.

The chocolate feast raises funds for scholarships. Tickets cost $5. Generally the AAUW gives three $1,000 to women from the region toward their college or university tuition.

Sekiguchi says the 2002-2003 recipients include Jennifer Conner -- a "very talented musician" who plays flute and piccolo at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Conner graduated from Carson High School in 2002. She was active in her high school music program. At UNR, she plans to major in Business and Marketing of music.

Nicole Theissen, another scholarship recipient, is a reentry student who has gone back to school to earn a degree in social work at Western Nevada Community College. She was a stay-at-home mother until her youngest started attending school full time recently. Theissen is seeking an AA degree in social work and would like to

continue at UNR for her BA.

Christine Winder, the third recipient, was last year's WNCC award winner and this year's UNR scholarship awardee. Winder is married and is the mother of four children, ages 11, 9 and 5. She also had two, 2 year old twins. One of the twins died after battling a year of hydrocephalus and other birth defects requiring 11 surgeries. She is a speech pathology major and after completing her undergraduate degree plans on continuing her education for a masters degree. She has worked with special needs population for 17 years at Eagle Valley Children's Home, Carson City School District Special Education, and Ormsby Association for Retarded Citizens.

"If we make more than $3,000 that money will go to our education foundation in D.C.," Sekiguchi said. The Education Foundation of the AAUW is the largest organization exclusively funding women in graduate studies, she said. "We are particularly interested in women in graduate studies."

This year's event was a success, with the turn out more than doubling from last year, Sekiguchi said.

"Last year we had oodles of chocolate stuff left over so we were taking it over to the fire stations and giving it away," she said. "We were wondering where we'd take it this year but now we're having to go out and get more."

More than 20 businesses donated chocolate, cake, gift certificates and even helium to the event. New this year were DW's Restaurant at David Walley's Resort Hot Springs and Spa, which had its own 6-foot table with two employees, Molly's Gourmet Catering, Partylite, See's Candy, Slot World, the Albertson's in north Carson and Wal-Mart.

ON THE NET

American Association of University Women

www.aauw.org/