It takes a year to put on a party like Cupid's Ball

Jo Perusich was a tad embarrassed to admit it: “We’re party girls.”

But that bubbly personality trait she shares with fellow Women’s Service League member Chele Trammell is what has driven them to serve as co-chairs for the annual Cupid’s Ball each of the past five years.

Trammell said they have grown to love the event, despite the untold hours required to make it “just so” every year. She enjoys the event planning and decorating elements of the work, and how the event serves as a springboard to a life of community service for the girls who attend.

“We try to to instill some volunteerism in the girls,” Trammell said. “We want them to be future (Women’s Service League) members.”

In the past, girls attending Cupid’s Ball have been asked to donate pajamas for less fortunate families; this year, for the first time, the girls were asked to bring books. Perusich also noted that many girls who grow past Cupid’s Ball’s age limit of 12 come back to take part in the event as helpers.

“The ball is also a way to encourage philanthropy,” she said. “The girls like it, it makes them feel good.”

Over the past 15 years, Cupid’s Ball has grown to be a milestone event for many local girls and their fathers, grandfathers or other significant men in their lives. But it also is a fundraiser that benefits local organizations. Proceeds from ticket sales, the silent auction and the auction of tickets to the following year’s ball have been donated to purchase playground equipment for schools, among other projects.

“The goal is to affect a number of people and for (the donation) to be long lasting,” Perusich said. “We want to reach as many people as we can.”

The total from this year’s ball, held Saturday at Smith-Cotton High School, is not in yet, but last year’s ball raised $10,000. While most of those proceeds were donated, some was set aside for scholarships, and Trammell said the league is looking for more scholarship applicants.

The 34-member league realizes that costs add up for those attending the ball — from tickets, to dresses, to hair styling to dinner. One way to help defray those costs this year was Cupid’s Closet, a sale of dresses donated by girls who had attended the ball in previous years. Girls were able to buy dresses at bargain prices, and the league had a new revenue stream to support its charitable mission.

“We hate to constantly have our hand out,” Perusich said, with Trammell jumping in to add, “But some of our dads are incredibly generous.”

Some fathers have been to every one of the 15 Cupid’s Ball events and, Perusich said “they hate it when their girls get to the age that they cannot go anymore.”

And as a much-anticipated annual event, Trammell and Perusich said they always are working for a bigger “wow” factor than the year before. The Women’s Service League meets monthly, and Cupid’s Ball is always a topic of conversation as it has become the group’s sole fundraising event.

Susan Mergen, who introduced the Cupid’s Ball concept to the league, said: “Obviously, the bottom line is to provide an evening ... to remember, but it also is to give back to our community. We certainly have achieved that over the past 15 years.”

League members are organized into committees, playing to their strengths in decorating, food and so on.

“We have been able to take the talents of many and put them where they can best be used. The end result is what we have had past few years,” Mergen said.

And once a ball is complete, there is no time to rest: The night of the ball, the volunteers go out for a late meal and pick the theme for the next year.

Both Perusich and Trammell have daughters who attend the ball, which they said is helpful in figuring out what will resonate with their target audience.

“Because they have girls, and are creative, their vision is just crazy wild imaginative, and that gets us all pumped up,” Mergen said.

The night of the ball, Trammell and Perusich are busy attending to details, working with volunteers and taking pictures to chronicle the event. But there is always a moment when they find each other and take it all in — “and sometimes we end up crying,” Perusich said.

Trammell said when they see a dad holding his daughter, dancing with her and shedding a tear, “That is what it is all about.”