Hilltop Home hosted our 1st Annual Luau Party celebrating the end of the school year on Friday, May 23rd, 2008. The colorful and lively event enveloped the gazebo and grounds of the home while picture-perfect weather completed the picture. Under sunny skies, with a slight summer breeze and amidst plenty of poolside atmosphere, this Hawaiian themed party, complete with grass skirts, leis, tasty fare, native music and lively games rocked the Hilltop!

Together, the staff and children participated in festive activities including the fire dance, flamingo toss, pass the coconut, shake-shake senora with the fun culminating in the famous limbo rock dance. The bountiful luau–style lunch buffet was exceptional and featured numerous native dishes including tasty pork kabobs, mouth-watering casseroles, sweet breads, fresh pineapple and was topped off by the deliciously official luau cake.

Loads of planning, coordinating and just plain old hard work beginning back in March went into making this first ever “Hawaiian Feast” a great success. Indeed, fun was had by one and all. Kudos and many thanks to all the Hilltop school staff for making the 1st Annual Luau a memorable celebration and definitely one we won’t soon forget. Check out the pictures in our gallery!

Article by C. Moore

JAY JOHNSON: TWO AND ONLY brought down the house on what would otherwise have been simply another rainy and dreary evening in early March. This was not to be the case however, for the evening of March 4th, 2008 marked Hilltop Home’s Eighth Annual “Night at the Theatre” Fundraising event featuring ventriloquist and gifted storyteller, Jay Johnson. Jay and friends, incorporating a variety of theatre and storytelling techniques, kept the audience, young and old alike, enraptured , engaged and entertained while simultaneously educating attendees with the long history of the art of ventriloquism from ancient Greece, to vaudeville and through to the era of television.

The evening’s event was held at the A. J. Fletcher Theatre located in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts located in downtown Raleigh. The event kicked off at 7:00PM in the lobby with a lavish champagne reception, complete with fabulous fare and live entertainment, courtesy of the Broughton High School Quintet. The performance began at promptly 8:15PM and as promised, kept all entertained and enthralled, from open to close…… making Hilltop Home’s 2008 fundraiser a tremendous success!

Hilltop Home presents its eighth annual Night at the Theatre Fund Raising Event on March 4, 2008, featuring Jay Johnson: The Two And Only!

Jay Johnson: The Two and Only! Is a genre-bending theatrical experience incorporating a variety of theater and story telling techniques. It illuminates the history of the art of ventriloquism from ancient Greece to vaudeville to television. Jay’s show is hilarious as well as thought provoking.

The evening begins with a champagne reception at 7:00 PM in the lobby of the A. J. Fletcher Theatre in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts. It continues with the performance at 8:15 PM. You are invited to become a part of this exciting event, proceeds to benefit Hilltop Home.

For more information, please click here. To become a corporate sponsor, please click here.

For the past several years, Hilltop Home has been fortunate to be associated with Dr. Larry Bohs and his Duke University biomedical engineering students in the “Devices for People with Disabilities” class each fall. These students work directly with clients with disabilities to develop new devices to assist those individuals in their daily lives. Students apply innovative design and technology ideas as they move from an idea on paper to the final fabrication of a completed device, which is donated to the client free of charge.

In 2005 these students designed an outdoor play activity center for Hilltop, and in 2006 they designed a motorized rocking chair. In the fall of 2007, the students again worked diligently to fabricate a special custom play chair for an energetic young boy at Hilltop. This unique chair allows this child to bounce and rock to his heart’s delight. It provides him lots of sensory stimulation, while helping him to strengthen his movement and balance skills.