volunteer initiatives

BrazilFoundation's friends and volunteers are rolling up their sleeves and organizing their own initiatives to capture the indispensable resources needed to build a better Brazil. We highlight some of these initiatives below:

• Mauro André Mendes Finatti from the law firm, Machado, Meyer, Sendacz e Opice, Maria Edith Bertoletti, from Sullivan & Cromwell, and Gabriela Moreira, a Brazilian lawyer and volunteer with BrazilFoundation, organized an informal meeting on June 11 to introduce BrazilFoundation to a group of 50 lawyers. "I am in love with this work and with the possibility of helping to accelerate social change in Brazil", Finatti said. BrazilFoundation intends to use this model to inform other professional groups about its work.
  
  
• Helio de Souza, owner of Helio de Souza Salon in New York City, invited 100 guests to his home for a benefit dinner. At $100 a plate, Helio raised close to $9,000 that evening. The proceeds support 90 children in the Mãe Chica daycare center in Claudio, Minas Gerais. The guests had a great time eating wonderful food donated by a fine New York caterer, listening to a Brazilian band and singer, and guaranteeing the children another year of support.
  
  
• Vanessa Simone Pereira Tobin, a lawyer, Patricia Cavalcanti Lobaccaro, an Architect and Flavia Cattan-Naslausky, an investment banker, threw a party at The Chateau, in Soho, for friends and friends of friends. Giuliano Simone Pereira designed and produced 500 invitations that brought in 275 young people to the party, which raised $14,000. The three organizers chose to benefit Carpe Diem, an education project for underprivileged children in Mogi Mirim, Campinas. The event was publicized in the social columns of Estado de São Paulo and O Globo and has sparked interest among young Brazilian professionals in Miami who are now planning to hold benefits of their own.
  
  
• Tania Menai, a Brazilian journalist, organized a night of dancing and an art auction to raise funds for CEDAPS, a health project lead by Doctor Daniel Becker in Vila Paciência, one of the biggest favelas (slums) in Santa Cruz, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Tania and BrazilFoundation are proud to support CEDAPS.
  
  
• Alan Riddell, a banking executive from Rio de Janeiro, and his wife Janet, who works in marketing, organized a caipirinha party to raise funds for Familia Santa Clara, a not-for-profit organization in Rio de Janeiro that cares for 70 children with high social risk profiles. More than 200 guests came to a friend's downtown loft in February 2003 to savor Brazil's national drink and draw a ticket for a painting by the Brazilian artist Patricia Fairon. The caipirinha party raised more than $6,000 through the sale of tickets and some 400 caipirinhas!
  
  
• A group of eight Brazilians who live and work in New York decided to use Brazil's Carnival as a theme to generate resources for BRASCRI, a non-for-profit foundation that benefits underprivileged Brazilian children and adolescents in São Paulo. The group, including Luciana Galan, Gasparina Borges, Solange Lemos, Tania Cavalheiro, Miriam Weissman, Rejane Ribeiro, Patricia Lopes and Andrea Menez, threw a fantastic party on February 27, 2003, that brought Carnival to The Chateau, a trendy lounge in Manhattan's West Village. The event raised $15,000 through the sale of 280 invitations and raffle tickets. The funds will mostly be used to build new classrooms in a school BRASCRI runs in Santo Amaro, São Paulo.