Playing Tricks on Parkinson’s at the Swan Coach House gathered about 40 women from around the community to raise funds for the Michael J. Fox’s Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. In the historic home’s Bella Nita Room, women lunched on the “Swan’s Favorite,” chicken salad in crunchy cracker timbles with cheese straws and frozen fruit salad, and the sweet “Silk Swan,” a swan-shaped dessert with a meringue base and scoop of chocolate mousse, before challenging each other to play their best hand of social bridge and raise nearly $6,000 for the cause. This second annual event was started by Tricia Washington, whose mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2012. “I asked her what I could do to support her. Her only request was that I learn to play bridge,” Washington says. She began taking lessons with Melissa Bernhardt and Merrel Hattink’s Bridge and Company and launched this fundraiser in 2014. Among local guests, the event also included a table of bridge players who flew in from Memphis and another connected to Washington’s grandmother’s former bridge circle. – Jessica Wise
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