WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — CASA of Red River is celebrating their 40th anniversary with the return of a loved event.

Taylor Wilson and Abigail Craig from CASA of Red River sat down with Carney on Monday, March 6, to talk about their upcoming 40th anniversary celebration, CASAblanca.

To celebrate, CASA is bringing back the beloved CASAblanca event starting at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 15, at The Forum located at 2120 Speedway Ave. in Wichita Falls.

Carney Porter: Well, Abigail Craig and Taylor Wilson are joining us now to tell us all about the upcoming event, Casablanca. Thank you all so much for joining us today.

Taylor Wilson: Thank you for having us.

Carney Porter: So for those who may not know, what is Casablanca?

Abigail Craig: Casablanca is an event that’s put on every year. Obviously, with COVID, it’s been a bit since we had it. But every year to support CASA of Red River and it’s an evening gala meant to spend time dining with friends, playing casino games and really just having a good time with everybody.

Carney Porter: Now, how long has it been since y’all have had the event?

Taylor Wilson: 2017, I think it’s usually every other year, but with COVID, it’s been that long. So we’re really excited to be able to get back into things and get to, you know, just get an awareness about CASA and all the awesome stuff that they do.

Carney Porter: Absolutely. Bringing it back after six years, and it’ll be fun. It’ll kind of be a reintroduction of sorts, you know. So what is it that the- all of the money of course, it’s going to go to CASA of Red River. But what will that money specifically do that you raise from the event?

Abigail Craig: Yeah, there’s a quite a few things that we’re needing with CASA. So a lot of it will go directly to the children and making sure that they’re able to get specific supplies that they may need or let the volunteers really shower them. But there’s also just miscellaneous items. I think there’s advertising that we need money for.

Taylor Wilson: A travel budget and a lot of people don’t know. But our volunteers will go to Houston, Corpus Christi. I mean, other states, they have to see their kids every so often. And so that travel budget to be able to, you know, let our volunteers go and actually see the kids and make sure they’re doing good, takes a lot of money.

Carney Porter: Right. You don’t want to miss out on them. You got to make sure we we get with every single kid, no matter how near and far. Yes. Now, what are you personally, both of you all looking forward to with that event? What are what is something that’s most exciting to y’all?

Taylor Wilson: That’s a good question. Gosh, I don’t know.

Abigail Craig: I’m looking forward to the casino games.

Carney Porter: I think I would be right there with you.

Abigail Craig: I don’t gamble very much, but it is going to be a lot of fun and it’s for a good cause. I feel better when my money gets lost for a good cause. I think that’s what I’m looking forward to.

Taylor Wilson: I would say that I would love to win one of the raffle items that we have. When you play the casino games, you’re going to trade those in for some tickets to win some really awesome prizes. We’ve got Airbnbs in Ruidoso, we’ve got Broken Bow, we’ve got different hunts going on. So I would love to win one of those.

Carney Porter: Well, a good time for sure. Now we’ll have all of that information that’s happening April 15th, correct? Perfect. Well, we’ll have all of that information over on our website. Thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate it.