Business Briefs: A Red Carpet Affair

JOLIET -- The Department Restaurant and AB Impressions will host A Red Carpet Affair Hollywood-themed Halloween Party fundraiser on Friday to benefit the Lamb's Fold Center for Women and Children.

Doors open at 9:30 p.m.; admission is $10 per person and attendees must be 21 years of age. Guests are encouraged to come dressed as their favorite celebrities and to walk the "red carpet." Though costumes are optional, admission includes a costume contest entry with a cash prize for best costume. Also include are: a door prize raffle entry, a goody bag and a drink ticket. Donations for Lamb's Fold will also be accepted at the event, which will be covered by local cable television.

In addition to a DJ, drink specials and raffles, hypnotist Rick Longstreth will be performing in one of the private banquet rooms. His show starts at 10 p.m.; admission costs $10 if purchased on the night of the event and $5 if purchased online. More information about Longstreth can be found at www.hypnotistricklongstreth.com .

Lamb's Fold houses homeless women and children and victims of domestic violence. For more information about Lamb's Fold go to www.lambsfold.org. For more information on the event, visit www.thedepartmentjoliet.com or call 815-714-2280.

JOLIET -- The Advisory Board recently gave Silver Cross Hospital $19,565 to complete a three-year, $150,000 pledge to fund new X-ray equipment for the hospital's emergency department. Last year, more than 58,000 patients were treated in the hospital's emergency room. As a result of the board's operation of the Encore Shop , they were able to complete this pledge in just more than two years.

In addition to the $150,000 pledge, over the last six years, the board has donated more than $250,000 to the hospital for equipment. The Encore Shop is on Walnut Street just north of the hospital's Keck Emergency Pavilion. The resale shop is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and the first Saturday of the month. Donations are welcome.

For more information, call volunteer services at Silver Cross Hospital at 815-740-7117.

JOLIET -- The Mobile Learning Center of the Workforce Services Division, a department of Will County government, helps people find jobs and helps businesses find people to fill those jobs.

The center will be at these locations (hours are from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. unless otherwise specified):

Monday: New Lenox Library, 120 Veterans Parkway.

Tuesday: 9:30 to 11:30, University Park Town Center, 90 Town Center, 1 to 3 p.m.

Wednesday: Manhattan Market Place, 260 Market Place. For more information, call 815-727-4444 or go to www.jobs4people.org.

ARGONNE -- The Center for Nanoscale Materials at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory dedicated its new scanning probing microscopy building recently during its annual users conference. The new building will house a new scanning probe microscope that measures spin-polarized electrons on surfaces.

Nanomagnetism research using the microscope may lead to more energy-efficient motors, advanced information storage, processing prototype devices, advanced medical therapy and biomagnetic sensing concepts.

A new building was constructed adjacent to the center to house the microscope, which requires a highly stable operating environment that is free of acoustic and vibration interference. The microscope also produces relatively large stray magnetic fields that are incompatible with instruments in the center.E-mail business briefs or calendar items to ccain@scn1.com