The Illumination Dinner
benefiting the Institute for Spirituality and Health
Tuesday, May 19, 2026 | 7:00 - 9:00 PM
Check-in begins at 6:30 PM
In Person at
TMC3 Collaborative Building at the TMC Helix Park
7255 Helix Park Avenue, Houston, TX 77030
If you are unable to attend the Illumination Dinner, please consider a one time donation by clicking the button below.
The 2026 Institute for Spirituality and Health at the Texas Medical Center fundraiser dinner on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, benefits the Institute's four Centers of Excellence:
Center for Faith and Public Health
Center for Body, Spirit, and Mind
Center for Aging and End of Life
Rabbi Samuel E. Karff Center for Healthcare Professionals
The event features keynote speaker Dr. Sunita Puri, Director of UC Irvine Palliative Care and author of the acclaimed memoir That Good Night. A Rhodes Scholar and global speaker, Dr. Puri explores how compassionate language empowers patients and physicians to navigate the complexities of living and dying.
We are also honoring the 2026 Rabbi Samuel E. Karff Caring Heart Award recipient, Melanie Lawson, an award-winning journalist, community rights advocate, spiritually committed, and proud Houstonian.
All underwriters are recognized in the event program and publicity, at the event, and on the Institute’s website, social media, and annual report.
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Sunita Puri is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, where she is the Director of the Inpatient Palliative Care Service. A 2025 Literature Fellow of the Bogliasco Foundation, she is the author of That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour, a critically acclaimed literary memoir examining her journey to the practice of palliative medicine, and her quest to help patients and families redefine what it means to live and die well in the face of serious illness.
A graduate of Yale University and the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship, her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Slate, Wall Street Journal, and the Journal of the American Medical Association. She and her work have been featured in the Atlantic, People Magazine, PBS’ Christian Amanpour Show, NPR, the Guardian, BBC, India Today, and Literary Hub. In 2019, the Guardian made a mini documentary of her work with her patients, which has been viewed over 3.5 million times. She has been awarded writing residencies at the Bogliasco Foundation, MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, Mesa Refuge, and UCross.
A sought-after speaker who has delivered lectures around the world, she is passionate about the ways that the precise and compassionate use of language can empower patients and physicians to have the right conversations about living and dying.
Interweaving evocative stories of Puri’s family and the patients she cares for, That Good Night is a stunning meditation on impermanence and the role of medicine in helping us to live and die well, arming readers with information that will transform how we communicate with our doctors about what matters most to us.
2026 Rabbi Samuel E. Karff Caring Heart Award Honoree
Melanie Lawson is an award-winning journalist who has had a legendary career at ABC KTRK-13. Her recent retirement included the naming of the station News Conference Room “The Melanie Lawson News Conference Room,” and an original dance created in her name by the Urban Souls Dance Company.
Melanie has won numerous reporting awards, including three Emmys, and has conducted numerous local, national, and international interviews, including four U.S. presidents, Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, prima ballerinas Lauren Anderson and Misty Copeland, the Dalai Lama, Barbara Walters, Tyler Perry, Maya Angelou, Magic Johnson, etc., and an upcoming interview with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Melanie currently sits on the boards of the Houston Museum of African American Culture, the Houston Ballet, Asia Society, and the Rothko Chapel, and is a strong supporter of the Community Artists Collective, Shape Community Center, and the church her dad founded, Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church.
Along with her husband, John Guess, Jr., Melanie is a passionate collector of African American glass and contemporary art. Works from their collection have been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Roswell Museum in New Mexico, the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Bellville Museum of Art, the Bechtler Museum in Charlotte, NC, and the Afrika Museum in Amsterdam. They have donated works from their collection to the Menil Collection and the Blanton Museum, and have been honored by the Art League, the Community Artist Collective, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Diverseworks, the Bayou Arts Festival, and the Center for Contemporary Craft. Their traveling collection, the Guess Lawson Collection, has been shown most recently at the Gensler architecture firm.
2026 Underwriters
Current May 1, 2026
Aurora
The Kanaly Foundation
Beacon
Mary Katharine and John Roff III
Brilliance
Kelli Cohen Fein and Martin Fein/Yvonne and Scott Ziegler
Maarit and Russ Harp
Lavannya and Rahul Pandit
Regina Rogers
Luster
Claire Hein Blanton and Jack Blanton III
Lex Gillan and Cathy Nunnally
Gaelyn Godwin
Pat and John Graham
Memorial Hermann
VIP Reception Sponsor
Hindu American Foundation
Lantern
Gayle DeGeurin
C. Richard Stasney
Sarah Terrell
Bonnie Weekley
Special Friends
George Anderson
Congregation Beth Israel
Tom Faschingbauer
Charles Schwartzel
David M. Underwood Jr.