Nonprofit/Advocacy

Instead of falling apart when her 22-month-old grandson was getting slammed with chemo to battle cancer, Kay Burnham decided to sing and dance.

It had been decades since Burnham had gone onstage – high school, to tell the truth – but in a very wonderful way she believed she had no choice. After witnessing the dedication, care and tenderness of the staff at CHOC Children’s Hospital, where little Carter was being treated, her soul needed to give back and she knew of a very special musical that would help her do just that.

Now, six years since those terrible days, Burnham is still giving back by, yes, singing and dancing.

It’s a recent Saturday and Burnham and more than 100 other volunteers rehearse – and rehearse – for one of the craziest and coolest fundraising events in Orange County, the annual CHOC Follies. It’s a musical of epic ambition and – absent my two-left feet, unlike a few years ago – the April 2 opening night is sure to be a musical of epic success.

“What if your hinges all are rusting?” dozens of voices soar in unison and with “All That Jazz” finger-snapping cool. “What if, in fact, you’re just disgusting?

Whiting: CHOC Follies: They're saving babies with a song

“Razzle dazzle ’em / And they’ll never catch wise!”

Join me as we walk through the fourth floor of a building on the corner Of Bristol and Sunflower in Costa Mesa that just happens to be a perfect home for razzling and dazzling.

By JONATHAN D. GLATER

Digging out of debt keeps getting harder for the

unemployed as more companies use detailed credit checks

to screen job prospects. Out of work since December, Juan

Ochoa was delighted when a staffing firm recently

responded to his posting on Hotjobs.com with an opening

for a data entry clerk. Before he could do much more,

though, the firm checked his credit history.