A Message From RubyStarlight

I just wanted to share with everyone a little backstory about how The Stylista Festival came to be. It's been a very surprising and fast moving road for me as this event has taken shape and for those interested, I thought I'd share it with you.

Last year at this time I owned a small beach, Kismet Cove, and got inspired to do something for charity. Normally, in RL, I buy toys for Christmas Angels through the Salvation Army, but at the time I wasn't working and just couldn't afford to do it. So in Second Life I decided to host a month long fundraiser for Make-A-Wish Foundation of America® at my beach. My goal, was $250,000L and I contacted as many creators I knew of from JD Hansen to Stroker Serpentine. It was a struggle, having never hosted such a thing before, and in the end we raised $100,000L, and I admit I was disappointed.

So this year I knew I had to do something bigger and more planned. So I started thinking I'd rent an open-space sim to hold it on. Alas, open-space sims have avatar limits. But there was NO WAY I could afford to rent a full sim for a month, I knew I'd have to have someone donate it. So I contacted Rezzable, told them my idea, and amazingly they responded quickly and loved it. Of course there was a catch. Rezzable only donates a block of 4 sims and they must all be used for the event. So basically I had to come up with something so big that it would span four sims. I had NO idea how I would pull that off. I was just a regular girl, a hopeful model waiting for the Miss Virtual World callbacks (at the time Miss SL Universe), with ZERO contacts. But I wanted this to happen. So I contacted the most powerful and public person I knew of; Frolic Mills.

I knew of Frolic of course because I had entered into the Miss SLU pageant and had been paying VERY close attention to The Best of SL community, getting to know the names of the "who's who", going to parties and all that. So I got brave and dropped Frolic a notecard, telling him what I wanted to do and asked him if he and The Best of SL would sponsor this event. The next day I logged on to an IM response from Frolic and a friendship offer (I nearly fainted), and he asked me to contact him when I logged on. So I did (of course) and Frolic said to me that he would love to help me out, and that instead of worrying about the Rezzable sims, that once Miss SLU is over with, I can have full use of his brand new 4-sim theatre being built and that I could do whatever I wanted in it for my fundraiser. WOW! I was FLOORED! I admit I was totally star struck, probably thanked him about 1000 times like some crazed fan and then proceeded to bother him every day with questions (go ahead and ask him what a pain I am!).

From there I started planning events and ways to raise money, coming up with names of designers and such. Then Frolic mentioned to me that I would absolutely have to get official Make-A-Wish backing. Uh oh. I had no idea what that would include, but I called them up (they coincidentally are based in Phoenix, AZ, near to where I live), we spoke and after 3 weeks of waiting, they approved the event. I met with them in person on November 3rd where I gave a demonstration of Second Life to a boardroom full of executives and parts of the legal team (yes I was crazy nervous) and together we created Wish Sharple, the avatar set up to take all donations for the event.

So now here we are, over a month later, getting ready to kick off this event that I and so many others have been working night and day to pull off. With a goal of $20,000US, a lot of support, amazing talent, dedicated volunteers, and a magical cause, I know we can make SL history with this event. Thank you all who have participated and who will participate, and I will see you on December 12th to get this party started right!!

Much Love,
RubyStarlight Writer