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The 12th annual Behind the Mask was a big success on Saturday night raising $139,042 for Twin Cedars. 

Twin Cedars Youth and Family Services is a non-profit that helps children in need. Twin Cedars provides programs for abused and neglected children, child advocacy, residential programs, foster care and much more. 

The annual Mardi Gras-themed ball and fundraiser was held at Del’avant in downtown LaGrange.  Each year, Twin Cedars recruits community leaders to serve on the Royal Court, where they compete to receive the most votes in the form of donations to Twin Cedars where one dollar equals one vote. 

The highest fundraisers are then crowned King and Queen of the Mask during the Mardi Gras-themed ball. The top four fundraisers were Brent Hester, Evan Kirby, Tasha Hubbard-Davenport and Dr. Kerry Hensarling.

Top fundraisers Hester and Hubbard-Davenport were named King and Queen of Mask for 2025.  The remaining members of the royal court, referred to as dukes and duchesses, include Duchesses Keri Drake, Ameia Cotton-Williams, Sarah Beth Childress, Kristina Moore, Nikki Franklin and Symone Brown, and Dukes Logan Burns, Jeremy Dockins, Mitchell Turnham and P.T. Alford.

King Hester said he participated to help less fortunate children.

“Not everybody is as fortunate as you and I to have great parents and have a great family. What’s really nice is Twin Cedars fills that gap. They’re able to give a child the best possibility to have a great life,” Hester said.

Queen Hubbard-Davenport was elated to be named Queen of the Mask, and even more proud to be one of the top fundraisers for children.

“I feel absolutely phenomenal. I think everybody is a queen simply because all our goal was was to raise money to support the children of our community and the surrounding community,” Davenport-Hubbard said. “It’s an absolute pleasure to be able to be crowned this year’s Behind the Mask queen.”

“Children are my passion. So anything that I can do to help support children and to help children have a better future, and those are the things that I’m gonna do,” she said.

Kim Rozycki, director of development and marketing for Twin Cedars, said this year’s Behind the Mask was their biggest fundraiser yet, raising just over a thousand dollars over last year’s total.

A big help was last year’s decision to allow “voting” to continue during the event. Rozycki said it helped last year, but it really helped this year.

“This year it made a lot of difference. So adding the ability to collect donations at the event really helped us,” she said.

All the money raised goes to help local children and their families.

“It supports the LaGrange programs of Twin Cedars. These are foster children, child victims, witnesses to crimes and boys at our residential home at the Bradfield Center,” Rozychi said. “It also supports Safe Families where children are at risk —children taken care of while their parents get on their feet. We also have prevention programs that work with teenage pregnancy and drug and alcohol abuse.”

“Everything is pretty much around children and teens and families, but the money is much needed and is put to good use, to be able to continue the programs and to support the children and families,” Rozycki said.