If you’re going
What: Tam’s Backstage sixth anniversary dinner benefitting Children’s Healthcare of Forsyth’s Ambulance Fund
When: 5 to 7 p.m. June 27
Where: Tam’s Backstage Restaurant, 215 Ingram Ave.
Cost: $20 for dinner; a cash bar will also be available
Also: Anyone not able to attend but wishing to help with the ambulance fundraising effort, can contact Beth Buursema at (404) 785-7691 or Elizabeth.buursema@choa.org.
A local restaurant will celebrate its anniversary while giving to a good cause later this month.
On June 27, Tam’s Backstage, located inside the Cumming Playhouse, will celebrate its sixth anniversary. A dinner benefit will be held, with proceeds going to the ambulance fund of the recently opened Children’s Healthcare of Forsyth.
Facility leaders are raising funds to secure a children’s ambulance that would be permanently housed at the site in The Avenue Forsyth mall on Peachtree Parkway.
Brian Tam, manager of Tam’s Backstage, said the anniversary dinner is an annual event.
“Every year we try to pick a cause in the community and give all the proceeds to them,” he said. “We chose Children’s because they’re new in town and we wanted to show them our support.”
Mary Helen McGruder, chairwoman of the local Children’s advisory board, said the ambulance is made for children and youth.
“The ambulance is a specially fitted pediatric ambulance. It has everything from an incubator for premature children up to full structures for older teenagers,” McGruder said.
Beth Buursema, community outreach liaison for Children’s, called the ambulance “an emergency room and intensive care unit on wheels.”
Buursema said a number of the vehicles are housed in various locations around metro Atlanta, but she and other Children’s Healthcare of Forsyth leaders want one locally to save time in emergencies.
“These vehicles do save lives,” McGruder said.
However, the fully outfitted ambulance costs more than $750,000, she said.
“For the Tams to host this dinner, it truly underscores the importance of Children’s to Forsyth County,” McGruder said. “It shows the willingness of our business community to make this dream of a pediatric ambulance a reality.”
The dinner is $20, with all proceeds going to the Children’s ambulance fund. Tam said guests should come hungry.
“We’ll have a wide variety of food, including a number of appetizers and entrees,” he said. “There’ll be plenty to eat.”
Buursema said leaders of Children’s of Forsyth are honored to receive funding from the dinner.
“Brian and Kelly do so much for the community,” she said. “We’re absolutely honored that for their sixth anniversary they chose to help us.”