Cindy Mokry, left, Jenny Palmieri, Ronda Gray and Mindy Bakker gathered for lunch at Gray’s home to raise money for the March of Dimes.
MARQUES G. HARPER: STYLE & SUBSTANCE The gated, cliffside Mediterranean-style mansion with its edgeless pool, miniature donkeys and horses, and separate party facility overlooking Lake Travis is more than mesmerizing. Will one of the “Real Housewives of Orange County” or Donatella Versace answer the door Instead, I meet the energetic host, Ronda Gray, an Austin native, University of Texas graduate and former school teacher who runs a field trip camp for teens called Camp on the Move. She invites me in to join her and a few of her closest girlfriends for a midday party, which includes Togarashi seared beef tenderloin with wasabi mayonnaise on black pepper biscuits, seaweed salad, eel rolls and chocolate-dipped strawberries from Pink Avocado. Food isn’t our main agenda, though. We gather for one of the hottest girlfriend events to take root in this turbulent economy, the gold party. This one is through Red Swan, the Narberth, Pa.-based division of Lippincott LLC. (For nearly 20 years, Lippincott has offered customers a way to sell gold, platinum and fine jewelry items). Gray heard about Red Swan through her sister and was intrigued.
What’s different about this gold party, as opposed to many I’ve heard about in recent months, is that this one isn’t about making some fast loot for a BMW payment. It’s about raising money for charity. In this case, money made from Gray’s gold party will be donated to the March of Dimes. Gray and her friends want to show the women of Dallas that Austin can single-handedly raise more money for the March of Dimes, even if it’s one gold bracelet at a time.