08/28/200
Al Kooper

December 6, 2005 at the Old Hit Factory Studios.  In partnership with Gibson Guitar and Baldwin Piano the event was great fun and a huge success.

Thanks to all of our sponsors, entertainers and contributors.

Photos of the event - Click here

We love the HOWL Festival! This is work we do to raise the level of awareness and funds $$$ for the non profit, max's kansas city project. (Photo: Oliver Rish)

Read more here about The HOWL Festival

Having seen the toll substance abuse has taken, Yvonne Sewall-Ruskin looks to help those trying to recover and warn others of the dangers.

"Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll" was the anthem of the '60's and '70's pop culture scene and, Max's Kansas City was at the center of this scene.

Entrepreneur and restaurateur Mickey Ruskin created the popular New York City nightspot, where the hippest artists, writers and musicians gathered. Between 1965 and 1974, Max's Kansas City attracted everyone from artist Andy Warhol to The Doors' Jim Morrison, to poet Allen Ginsberg and writer Truman Capote to Jane Fonda and Mick Jagger.

Fresh out of college in the fall of 1967, Yvonne Sewall gravitated to this cultural hub to work as a waitress. Within a few months, she enchanted Mickey. Before long, she became Yvonne Sewall-Ruskin and, later, the proud mother of Jessica, now 35, and Michael, 33, of New Paltz.

Currently living in Saugerties, Sewall-Ruskin perpetuates the memory of Max's Kansas City and Mickey Ruskin with a nonprofit organization designed to address the residual effects of "Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll." In 2001, she created the Max's Project Emergency Relief & Resource Fund, providing emergency funding and resources to artists in crisis. The project makes grants up to $1,000 to artists, musicians and writers working in New York for medical, legal or housing emergency needs.

Now she is launching DAMAGE CONTROL, an interactive cyber-mentoring program focused on making young people ages 13 to 20 more aware of the dangers of alcohol and drugs.

"We need to raise $50,000 in order to start the program in Mickey's memory," Sewall-Ruskin said. "In June, we'll have our annual fund raiser, an acoustic evening in New York.

"Far too many of those close to us have been lost to substance abuse, including Mickey," she added. "Statistics show that more and more teenagers are drinking excessive amounts of alcohol mixed with drugs, as well as doing drugs at an earlier age."

Sewall-Ruskin said that when she was with Mickey from 1968-1972, he didn't drink, smoke or do drugs. But, after years of working in the music business, where drugs prevailed, he started to use cocaine and other substances recreationally. In 1983, Mickey Ruskin died of an overdose of bad "street drugs" - Quaaludes combined with tequila.

DAMAGE CONTROL'S "online club" will feature a surprise mentor for each month of the year, a notable individual who is "in recovery" and willing to share invaluable experiences about his/her own struggles with getting and staying straight. Mentors will lead chats and post messages in that virtual club (Max's Kansas City), which will also feature a chat room, a gallery and a message board.

"The Web site will allow members to connect and exchange ideas with each other -- just as we all did in person at Max's many years ago," Sewall-Ruskin said. "Eventually, we plan to commission 10 artists to design T-shirts based on the theme DAMAGE CONTROL and conduct creative workshops in three New York City schools."

This enterprising woman has already had success in the apparel business. She created and sells Max's Kansas City shirts on-line and through a sales representative. Profits from sales help fund the Emergency Relief & Resource Fund, which has awarded more than $20,000 in grants to date. "My vision is for everything on the profit side to support the nonprofit work," said Sewall-Ruskin, who has a strong track record of raising funds.

In 1996, her nonprofit organization launched itself with a fund raiser to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Friends House, a homeless shelter for people with AIDS. The event brought in more than $50,000 by selling donated items from famous Max's Kansas City alumni regulars, including art superstars Robert Rauschenberg, Clas Oldenberg and Roy Lichtenstein.

Max's Project, her nonprofit organization, has other major art for sale that will fund DAMAGE CONTROL. They include an original Peter Max, a Marisol and a Mark DiSuvero, to name a few. In addition, the famous photograph of Bianca Jagger on the White Horse at her Studio 54 birthday party and one of Alfred Hitchcock by James Hamilton are available. The artists donated all of the their work.

Sewall-Ruskin moved to Saugerties permanently in May 2003 after decades of renting homes in the area from time to time. During the height of Woodstock's fame as a pop music mecca, She worked for music mogul Albert Groomsman at the Bearsville Recording Studies and at Bearsville Records. During that period, she taught English and history for a year to runaway teenagers at the first Family House in Woodstock.

Now, her volunteer work is dedicated to her Max's Kansas City projects. "I hope someday to take salary from the nonprofit organization," she said. I'm a conduit ... and get great pleasure from networking to help others."

For now, Sewall-Ruskin devotes her time and energy to helping those in need, whether it's a musician with legal problems with his landlord or a teenager who desires to get off drugs.

For those who want to get involved with these causes, Sewall-Ruskin suggests they volunteer their expertise, make a tax-deductible donation or purchase art or photographs that have been donated. For more information, go to www.maxskansascity.com  or www.maxskansascity.org (for the nonprofit organization)