Sunday, October 21, 2007

Child Haven Dinner



The Child Haven Fundraiser dinner my mother-in-law hosted this week was an enormous success!

Whew, I'm so relieved it's over....every year my fingers are crossed that people will turn out in droves and that the event will go off without a hitch. (Last year it was a bit of a gong show behind the scenes; we were better organized this year.)

And every year the Child Haven dinner project snowballs into a bigger event as Jeff's mom gets a little more ambitious. She spent three months volunteering in a Child Haven orphanage in Nepal so she feels a special connection to the children and women we are helping. (There are eight children's homes altogether in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Tibet. My pen-pal Ritika lives in the home outside Kathmandu.)

But all the scurrying around selling tickets, painting signs and posters, committee meetings, chaotic kitchen work, and the general stress and organization one might associate with putting on a huge Indian dinner for two hundred people was worth it---we raised over six thousand dollars for Child Haven International this year, almost doubling what we raised last year.

My main job that night was to man the sales tables with assistance from my mom--brightly coloured Indian cushion covers and caftans, jewellery, prayer-flags, little purses sewn with mirrors, silk neckties with elephants, so many beautiful little things to buy. It was fabulously, marvellously busy and I saw so many people I knew there.

Bonnie and Fred Cappuccino, the directors of Child Haven seen in the video below, stayed with my mother-in-law while in town for the fund-raiser. The morning after our dinner they left to travel down island to the next fund-raiser in Qualicum. They just never stop! It's amazing--I've never seen such energetic senior citizens. Of course, having raised twenty-one children (nineteen of them adopted) you know they have to have a special sort of energy and dedication driving them.





7 comments:

Crazy Me said...

I love to volunteer my time but I can't imagine being an event organizer. It sounds grueling! Glad it went well.

kimber said...

I endeavour to be as energetic and magnanamous as the Cappuccinos when I'm a senior -- I suppose this means I should start practicing now! :)

Congratulations on such a successful (and enjoyable) event!

Tai said...

Congratulations indeed! Now it's time to get ready for next years!

Mz.Elle said...

Wow!
I'm glad everything was a huge success:)

Bella said...

Cool!

:) Bella

BostonPobble said...

What an amazing thing! Congratulations!

And I have scrolled down to your last post just enough to know I can't read it. They're too big. So, I won't be catching up on your blog but I'll keep reading from here. :)

Jocelyn said...

Amazing. I love reading about people of all ages volunteering, especially when my energetic mother does nothing of the kind!

It's heartening to read of such people.