The pandemic impacted a lot of charitable organizations that do important work in Central New York. That includes Laci's Tapas Restaurant and their annual Giveback party.

This will be the 10th year of the event after a two-year pandemic hiatus. Laci's picks a local charity and provides the location, the food, the drinks and their popular name recognition.

This year's local charity is The Kara Fund.

Mark MacDougall is the president of The Kara Fund.

"Kara was an energetic, young high school student that traveled to Australia. And while she was there, she was diagnosed with liver cancer. And coming back, she was supported tremendously by the community here in Upstate New York," MacDougall said.

What You Need To Know

  • The Kara Fund is the winner of this year’s annual Giveback event held by Laci’s Tapas Restaurant

  • The Kara Fund strives to enhance the quality of life of children with life-threatening diseases and their families by providing material items, goods and services that offer physical and emotional support for them in their time of distress

  • Laci's Giveback event to benefit The Kara Fund starts at 5 p.m. Aug. 18. Tickets are $50 per person

  • The Kara Fund is named after Mark MacDougall's daughter, who died at 16 from liver cancer

At age 16, Kara lost her battle with liver cancer. She was MacDougall's daughter. The Kara Fund was born with community support as McDougal and his family and friends worked through their loss.

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"We're an organization that helps seriously ill children by bringing them and their families comfort," MacDougall said. "That comfort can take a lot of different forms. Some are big and some are small. As an example, we help every child that has sickle cell disease here in Onondaga County. One of the bigger things that we're doing is we've made a five-year commitment to Crouse Hospital to fund the renovation that's coming up for their Family Care Center for the NICU. And some smaller things that we do recently. We provided gas cards to families that were having a difficult time. They may have to drive down from Watertown every day to the hospital or so forth. Or if someone needs a special car seat."

It's an effort to raise funds to help enhance the quality of life of children with life-threatening diseases.

"So excited to be down here at Laci's Tapas," MacDougall said. "They are doing their Giveback event again this year. I know it's something that kind of got put on hold with COVID, but man, we're excited that The Kara Fund has been selected as the charity for this year's event. I really think this is going to be a good event for all of our community, something that we can come together. All the funds stay here in Central New York to help seriously ill children, and we're gonna have a lot of fun, good food, good drinks, good entertainment."

Laci's Giveback benefiting The Kara Fund will be 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday. Tickets are $50.