Cuba comes to Santa Barbara

BY JERAMY GORDON
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

To say Valerie Sobel has endured a lot in her lifetime is an understatement. When her 19-year-old son Andre was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor in 1995, life as she knew it changed forever.
For more than a year, Valerie spent 20 hours a day at Andre’s bedside, watching as her only son lost his sight, ability to speak and ultimately, his life. Then, on the one-year anniversary of Andre’s death, Valerie’s husband Erwin, 54, committed suicide, just months after Valerie’s mother died.

Her life was turned upside down, but what she witnessed spending day after day watching Andre slowly die, sparked an idea so grand it would change the lives of families across the nation.
Valerie, 66, noticed that the 12-year-old boy in the bed next to her son was all alone. When she asked where his parents were, the boy told her they were at home working to support him and his three siblings.
Valerie knew the fact that she was able to spend time with her son as his condition continued to deteriorate, without the added burden of worrying about finances, put her in a class all by herself. As she spent day after day in the hospital, she observed other children whose parents could not afford the same luxury as she.
In 2000, five years after Andre’s death, Valerie founded the Andre Sobel River of Live Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to making sure families can afford to spend time with their sick children.
Saturday night, amid gusty winds and smoky skies, the foundation held one of the grandest, most elegant fund-raisers the south coast has ever seen.
“The Pearl of Havana: A Cuban Fantasy” boasted some of Hollywood’s biggest names as well many familiar Santa Barbara faces as the charity raised money for mostly single-parent-families.
Celebrity faces in the crowd included actors Andy Garcia, Rob Lowe, Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges; Entertainment Tonight TV Personality Mary Hart; and up-and-coming actress and host of American Karaoke Champs, Patricia Taylor.
The event, which was held on the polo fields of the Nesbitt Estate in Carpinteria, was a recreation of a glamorous 1940 Havana night club and included a silent auction with well over a million dollars worth of auction items, a live auction, a cigar lounge and an enchanting authentic Cuban stage performance coordinated by JoAnn Jansen.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” UCSB trustee Marilyn Lee said about the $500-a-head event. “This is truly an amazing organization.”
Crustacean restaurant out of Los Angeles catered the six-course Tapas dinner, and Summerland Winery proved the wine.
At the last minute, tennis pro Jimmy Conners donated an hour long private tennis lesson to the live auction and a bidding war erupted. Two lucky biders nabbed the lesson for a whopping $60,000 each.
Desi Arnaz Jr. came out of retirement for the night to lead the band and TV personality Alan Thicke was the master of ceremony.
Guests were magically transported to 1940s Cuba for a night of joy and entertainment, but the true spirit of the Andre Sobel River of Life Foundation was still present.
Each year, 230,000 children are diagnosed with life-threatening diseases and Valerie has made it her life’s goal to see that “not one of them has to endure that challenging road alone.”
“Experiencing the sudden onset of a life-threatening illness of a child devastates every family,” Valerie said. “But for the single parent without financial resources, it is inconceivable.”
The foundation’s mission is to offer assistant to those families and do it quickly. The foundation prides itself on being able to provide financial relief in 14 hours.
The organization operates nationally at 12 pediatric hospitals, including the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital and the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto.
Valerie admits that starting the charity has been a lot of work. But Valerie is no stranger to hard work. A survivor of the Communist era, Valerie fled her native Hungary during the 1956 uprising against the Soviet regime, carrying her younger brother on her back while walking eight miles with her parents through a marsh, to cross the forbidden border to the safety of Austria. After the elation of the escape, there were many months in refugee camps.
In high school, Valerie was interested in acting. Through a fortuitous encounter, she was flown to Los Angeles for a screen test and won the role in “Mr. Hobbs takes a vacation” with Jimmy Stewart. In 1962 she became a California resident and has lived there ever since. Marriage was followed with the birth of her son Andre and daughter Simone. She eventually left film to focus on her family and later developed a successful career in interior design with her projects appearing in several books and magazines, including Architectural Digest.