If there are two things Houston is known for, it’s food and philanthropy. And combining the two is always a good idea! Taste of the Nation, benefiting the national No Kid Hungry campaign, was held at Silver Street Studios and featured gourmet bites and sips from some of the city’s top chefs. Alba Huerta, Rebecca Masson, Ryan Pera and Daniel Vaughn chaired the event. Meanwhile, the eighth annual Raising the Barre dinner also had its fair share of high-profile chefs. Here, Houston Ballet dancers teamed up with chefs like Jacques Fox, whose Artisans restaurant hosted the event, to create memorable courses inspired by the dancers’ unique backgrounds. More than $80K was raised to benefit the Ballet’s community engagement programs.
Fall Philanthropy Report: Children’s Assessment Center Touts ‘Healing’ for Child Abuse Victims
Oct. 8, 2024
What is your mission? The Children’s Assessment Center (The CAC) provides healing services to over 6,300 child sexual abuse victims and their families each year. We offer forensic interviewing, family advocacy, mental health services, medical care, and court services at no cost. We facilitate community outreach and prevention training to raise awareness about child abuse in our community and how to keep children safe. Last year, we provided prevention training to over 35,000 community members, including 23,500 children in schools.
Why did you launch the organization? The CAC is the only child advocacy center in Harris County and one of the largest nationwide. Sadly, before the implementation of advocacy centers, there was not a streamlined process for children. Victims of sexual abuse were often interviewed multiple times by various law enforcement, medical professionals, and mental health clinicians. Here at The CAC, we know that having to recount abuse several times can be retraumatizing, and we sought to find a solution to make a trauma-informed process.
The goal of The CAC is to provide all the services, partners, and resources families need in one place. We collaborate with hundreds of professionals from 60 Partner Agencies (e.g., law enforcement, medical and mental health professionals, nonprofits, and governmental investigative entities) to coordinate investigations, provide services, and protect children. Our hope is that our process will give children the tools necessary to empower them on their healing journey.
How have you impacted the community? Our work is guided by the belief that all children in our community deserve to grow up safe, happy, and healthy. We work to empower children’s healing journeys, restore hope in families, and provide support to avoid long-term trauma. The CAC exists to help our community become a better, safer place for each child of Harris County.
Tell us about your big event. We will host our annual Spirit of Spring Gala to celebrate The Children’s Assessment Center Foundation’s 30th anniversary. We are thrilled to invite community members who have helped us make a lasting impact on child sexual abuse survivors, their families, and our community. We look forward to commemorating the 30th year on April 11, 2025, at The Houstonian Hotel.
How can I help? As adults, it is our responsibility to keep children safe. Your generosity can help empower families on their healing journey and protect vulnerable children. Please consider how you can be part of the solution to end child sexual abuse. Go to our website, cachouston.org, to learn how to donate, volunteer, and protect children in our community.
We exist to protect children, heal families, and prevent child sexual abuse and child sex trafficking in our community.
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THE ARTIST WHO ushered in the expressionist movement in the early 20th century was not, in fact, Picasso or Matisse. It was Paul Gauguin, whose career spanned the decades just preceding the turn of the century. The French painter is the subject of the Museum of Fine Arts’ latest exhibit, Gauguin in the World, which was organized by Henri Loyrette (formerly of the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris). The show, just one of the museum’s diverse winter season shows, debuted in Australia in June and will be on display through Feb. 16, 2025, at the MFAH, the only U.S. venue for the survey.
Gauguin famously — and somewhat controversially, as he’s often accused of cultural appropriation — enjoyed the latter part of his life in Tahiti, where he deemed himself free from European and Western influences and norms. The art created there is among his most iconic, “returning to the questions that haunted him as an artist — the challenges that he set himself and solved in his quest for his own identity,” says Loyrette.
The MFAH’s winter season also includes 150 Years of Design, a joint project with the Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The organizations’ collaboration is the only one of its kind in the country; they’ve curated hundreds of architect-designed objects made beginning in 1880 — furniture, metalwork, ceramics, glass, lighting and industrial design. It runs through next summer.
Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples, on view until Jan. 20, 2025, is another expansive exhibit, this one featuring ancient and contemporary works depicting humanity’s relationship with spirituality over the course of 4,000 years. Objects are displayed across 11 different galleries, transversing themes of the cosmos, light, water and fire; the mysteries of life and death; the divine word; and pilgrimage. Meanwhile, Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery explores a specific medium as a vessel, both literally and figuratively, for indigenous narratives.
Finally, a collection of contemporary images depicts the role of photography in social and political movements in Cuba from the 1960s to the 2010s. Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography, on view through Aug. 3, 2025, explores “individual identity, the body and spirit, Afro-Cuban heritage, and the margins of society, all while navigating the changing prescriptions and proscriptions of official cultural policy,” says the museum.
Meanwhile, at the museum’s Glassell School of Art, Dec. 6-8, visitors can shop artworks — jewelry, prints, ceramics, paintings and more — by talented students.
‘The Offering of a Sentient Cry,’ by Tuan Andrew Nguyen, from ‘Living with the Gods’
Adjustable table lamp c. 1951, part of ‘150 Years of Design’
Alberto Korda’s ‘Guerillero Heroico,’ from ‘Navigating the Waves'
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1. On, Dancer
Houston Ballet’s Connor Walsh and Sara Webb in ‘In the Night’
In the midst of its always-celebrated production of The Nutcracker, the Houston Ballet’s annual Jubilee of Dance (Dec. 6-8) includes the premiere of a new work by choreographer Brett Ishida and a toast to principal dancers Connor Walsh and Jessica Collado’s 20th season with the company. Spring brings a trio of expressive ballets fusing contemporary and classic: In the Night (Feb. 27-March 9) will include Irish-folk number Celts, Stanton Welch’s Maninyas, and, naturally, Jerome Robbins’ In the Night.
2. Night Lights
Dubbed a “multisensory holiday escape,” Artechouse is an interactive digital-art space near M-K-T in the Heights. Its exhibits Spectacular Factory — an exploration of a holiday toy factory — and Tingle Bells promise to capture the nostalgia and festvitiy of the season. Raise a glass at the city’s only “extended reality” bar, inside Artechouse.
3. By a Thread
Bumin Kim’s thread-and-acrylic piece ‘Spring Shadows’
Houston’s galleries are full of gems year-round, especially during the holiday season. At Anya Tish Gallery, Hedwige Jacobs’ whimsical drawings and animations — inspired by her time living in Indonesia, particularly the overwhelming presence of cardboard shipping boxes — populate the walls through Dec. 28. In January, Korea-born and Texas-based artist Bumin Kim hangs colorful new thread-and-acrylic pieces. The Montrose gallery also curated a group show called Hurry Up, You’re Dreaming in the lobby of 700 Louisiana; works by József Bullás, HJ Bott and others explore the allure of the Op Art movement of the 1960s.
4. Home Girl
Hidden-gem music venue Heights Theater hosts a handful of homegrown stars this winter, including Hayes Carll (Dec. 7-8), Jack Ingram (Dec. 19), and jazz songstress Kat Edmonson (pictured, Feb. 16).
5. 'Nature' Calls
The dragon tunnel at Houston Botanic Garden
Houston Botanic Garden’s illuminated holiday exhibit has been popular for a few years running. This season, HBG brings back Radiant Nature (through Feb. 23), a dynamic, artist-created light show celebrating the Lunar New Year. Immersive and photo-friendly installations — plus plenty of pit stops for hot chocolate and more — will have guests of all ages lighting up!
6. Big Top!
‘Echo’ arrives in February.
Cirque du Soleil returns to Houston with Echo, an all-new production (its 20th!) that will set up at Sam Houston Race Park in February. Filled with dynamic lights and projections, quirky characters and awe-inspiring acrobatics, the fantastical show explores the sacred bond between humans, animals and nature. Echo runs Feb. 6 to March 9.
7. A Festive 'Flourish'
‘Untitled (Overcast)’ by Rubinstein
The landscape-inspired abstractions by New York’s Heather Bause Rubinstein cover the walls of Barbara Davis Gallery until Jan. 10. The show, Flourish + Fade, is comprised of huge oil-on-canvas paintings that were largely created during Rubinstein’s stint in Houston — she called it a “self-created residency” — in early 2024.
8. Cool Cat
A pioneer in the immersive-art world, Meow Wolf has expanded to Houston with Radio Tave, created by 100 artists, many of whom are local. The experience begins with guests walking into what looks like a radio station — but office drawers, doors (even the fridge!), and windows offer portals into new worlds, each surreal and otherworldly in its own way.
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