UF’s Club Creole will be celebrating its silver anniversary in style.
The annual Club Creole Gala Extravaganza will take place Saturday night at the Gainesville Country Club. The event will include performances, an auction, a guest speaker, dinner and dancing.
Geraldine Placide, Club Creole’s internal vice president, said it’s the first time the gala will focus more on Club Creole’s achievements than on life in Haiti.
“This year it’s more than just celebrating the culture,” Placide said. “It’s celebrating Club Creole’s success on this campus.”
The club also expects many out-of-town visitors from other university across the state to come join the celebration, Placide said.
However the celebration will still pay tribute to its Haitian roots. The money raised through the auction will help support a medical mission trip to Haiti.
The night before, at a pageant event, Mr. and Mrs. Club Creole will be chosen.
At the gala, they will be formally presented. For the remainder of the year, they will work together to do community service and promote Club Creole.
Emmanuela Etienne, a gala director, said she and her fellow director worked for about eight months to prepare for this event and said she excited to see the outcome.
“I think when the show is actually over and I see people’s reactions that they actually had a good time, that’s going to be the most rewarding thing,” Etienne said.
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 1/24/2014 under the headline "Club Creole to host fundraising gala"]
