Pres Romanillos and the Pres-Aid Charity Art Auction

Fellow animator and former TAG executive board member Pres Romanillos needs our help. A few years ago, while producing and directing his own film in Spain, Pres was diagnosed with leukemia. He returned to the US and underwent chemotherapy and a successful bone marrow transplant. He had less-than-optimal medical insurance at the time, and so his treatment (which is very expensive), and his long recovery during which he was unable to work, wiped out most of he and his wife Jeannine's savings. Eventually Pres returned to work, and animated on The Princess and the Frog at Disney and then on Shrek 4 at DreamWorks.

Unfortunately, Pres relapsed in March. He's back at City of Hope, getting chemotherapy and gearing up for another bone marrow transplant. At this point, the burden of medical copayments and the associated costs of his illness have Pres and Jeannine at a financial tipping point. Pres and his wife Jeannine, along with their brood of dogs and cats, are in a difficult spot, and they need our help.

We've planned a charity art auction in June to benefit Pres. On the evening of June 4, the monthly 'First Friday' event at Gallery 839 (and in the upstairs meeting space) will feature the artwork we've collected for the auction. At that reception, we'll have a silent auction for some selected pieces, and we'll have information on how to become a bone marrow donor.

Then on Sunday, June 13, we'll conduct a live auction at the TAG building in Burbank. Howard Lowery has volunteered to help run this auction, and as most of you know, Howard is the expert in these kinds of things. Also, during the first couple of weeks in June, we're planning to have selected pieces sold on eBay. Our goal is to collect about 100 pieces of art for the auction, and we're about half way there now.

I've created a website for the event (Pres-Aid.com) as well as a Facebook group, where you can get more information. I'm regularly posting artwork to the website that will be sold in the auction, and both those sites have additional information about Pres, his illness, and the auction.

We've contacted many friends and coworkers of Pres's to donate artwork, but we haven't been able to reach everyone we'd like to. If you're interested in helping, contact me at kevinwkoch(a)gmail.com.