The Friends of the Public Garden is hosting its annual gala Friday night and this year the money raised will go toward the Boston Common Brewer Fountain renovation project.

Usually called the Green and White Ball, the event has been renamed the "40th Anniversary Gala" this year and will be held at luxury hotel Taj Boston on Arlington St., right next to the Public Garden.

The gala was inaugurated in 1996, said Elizabeth Vizza, executive director of the Friends of the Public Garden, an organization that partners with the City's Parks Department to maintain the Public Garden, the Common and the Commonwealth Avenue Mall. 

Over the course of the last six years "the proceeds from the Green and White Ball brought in $2 million," said Vizza. 

Around 250 people attend the invitation-only gala every year. This year, in honor of the 40th anniversary, Mayor Menino will speak to party guests.

"The proceeds from the gala are going to support our legacy project around the Brewer Fountain and Park Street Station," said Vizza.

"It's the most ambitious project that this organization has ever done and probably the city has ever done as a partner with an organization," she added.

The fountain itself is newly restored and was just rededicated in May after a 10-year dry spell.

Construction on the area around the fountain is scheduled to begin in March.

"We said if we just do the fountain and we don't do the whole landscape we won't have done the whole job," Vizza said.