Kids With A Cause-Europe has a successful day at the Leman Event’s “Expat Fair”!

On Sunday November 6, Kids With A Cause-Europe had a great day and raised CHF 900 at the Leman Events “Expat Fair” in Lausanne.

The organizers – Leman Events – kindly offered our Foundation a stand at its annual event, a day for the public to find out more about Swiss and international businesses and services for the English-speaking community in the region.

The tables were stacked with a wide range of books, which were replenished throughout the day, as people came along and gave us their used books. Visitors enjoyed browsing, before choosing their favourite authors and leaving donations.

It was a great success and we would like to thank the following people:

• The organizers, Jos van Megchelen and Melania Quinn, the dynamic duo behind Leman Events, for kindly offering our foundation the stand, free of charge

• Medtronic, for all the books we received from its English reading corner

• Mrs. Constance Braissant of the Scots Kirk of Lausanne, for the great collection of first editions

• Everyone who donated books on the day

• The volunteers who manned the stalls: Olga Biston, Hui Hui YANG and Wei WU from the Lausanne Hotel School, Antoinette Price and Anthony Price

• Everyone who supported us on the day with their donations

• All the visitors to the fair who came to our stand and greatly encouraged us by their positive comments.

A special thanks goes to Librairie Payot of Lausanne, for its generous support of our sponsored reading project. Payot book shops stock books in various languages and have a particularly excellent selection of English language books.

The recent sponsored read organised at the Playgroup and Literacy Programme in which 250 children participated, was very successful. "Read For Me, Read For You" raised 4439.85 Swiss francs and the entire sum will go to the Association Moptimistes, Mali. A wonderful contribution towards the construction of their new children's house. A more detailed report will shortly be published here and in the meantime, a huge thanks to the children, the mothers and fathers and all those who helped with the project.

In May, KWACE donated a Barbie doll for a fund-raising event at the International School of Lausanne. The foundation's Ambassador at the school, Signe Bernhard-Larson, was in charge of the operation which involved paying a small fee to have a go at guessing the Barbie's name! In the space of 1 hour, Signe's team raised CHF 150 which will be used to help 16 year old Jerome, a pupil at the Mali Sita School in Tanzania. Jerome lives with his grandparents since his parents passed away when he was a young boy and the money will help keep him in school for a little longer. Well done Signe and thanks to all the International School of Lausanne students who demonstrated their solidarity towards a fellow student in Tanzania, by trying to guess Barbie's name!

Kids With a Cause Europe will be at the Expat Fair on October 31. Read more...

Rocking and Rolling for a Cause

On September 25th, the Australian band PartyTown came all the way from Down Under to perform a concert to raise money for the European Foundation “Kids With a Cause-Europe”, at the Lussy town hall. The place was soon hopping and bopping to some great old rock and roll tunes.

Band Music Director and lead guitarist, Graeme Murphy performed his well-known musical and physical gymnastics that greatly entertained everyone present. Philip Bowden (vocals and guitar), who recently played at the renowned Cavern Club of Liverpool, made famous by the Beatles, rocked the hall, while the beautiful sisters Gabrielle Murphy and Tina Bowden sang up a storm and had the whole room doing the Tina Turner “Nutbush City Limits” dance.

During the evening there were other performances by Yannick Berthoud, a young rock musician, whose “Connection-Band” from Echallens is making quite an impact on the local music scene. Tony Price, “international” jazz guitarist and the accomplished saxophonist Alan Hutchison from Nyon collaborated to produce some wonderful cool sounds to contrast with the otherwise “hot” evening.

There were all kinds of dancing and the event was a great success. The money raised will go towards the projects that KWAC-E has chosen to support this year, in India and Romania, full details are available on the website.

The Foundation would like to thank the Lussy Commune for the splendid hall, PartyTown for their fantastic performance, Pam Clark for the wonderful food, Axel and Sophia from the Lausanne Hotel School and Signe and Anna from the International School of Lausanne for their help with the catering, Nestle Waters for the drinks they offered, Zweifel Chips for the goodies they gave us, Boullard Music for their technical support, everyone who helped set up and tidy up, and finally everyone who attended and everyone who made generous donations during the evening.

PartyTown will be back next year!!

The Léman Events Open, organised by Léman Events and Tom Rosenfield’s Gorilla Golf at the Vuissens Golf Club, took place on Saturday 5 June and was a brilliant success. With impeccable organisation and perfect summer weather, the event attracted a very enthusiastic turnout of keen golfers who teed off at 8.00am sharp. The Vuissens Golf Club, set in the bucolic countryside of north Vaud, put on a magnificent show with a perfectly prepared course, beautiful club house and restaurant.

Kids With A Cause-Europe was privileged to be the chosen guest charity for the day and will receive a donation from the organisers of the Léman Events Open. We wish to thank everyone involved for the generous support of our foundation. This gift will be added to this year’s fund, destined to support:

The Veerni Project, a well-managed hostel and educational facility for girls in Rajasthan, India. Over the past 15 years, Veerni has helped many girls in Rajasthan find security and, through education and training, the means to live dignified lives and

Asociata Inima Copilor and cardiac surgeon, Dr. Suciu Horatiu, who performs life-saving operations on children born with heart disease. The work of Dr. Suciu, saves the lives of many underprivileged children, whose families do not have the means to pay for such operations.

Our foundation was represented by our volunteer “kids” Margaux, Emma, Rachel, Cavan, Isabella, Ilana and Chloé. By giving up their Saturday to support the foundation, these dedicated “kids” have now been nominated “Honorary members of Kids With A Cause-Europe” and will each receive a certificate of merit. The foundation’s President, Shawne Fielding, was also present and participated in the prize-giving ceremony.

We also wish to thank all the sponsors of the event with a special mention of Atlantic Watch Co. Ltd., which donated three beautiful chronograph watches.

Photographs of the event can be seen on: www.LemenEvents.ch/LemanEventsOpen2010

The Christmas Fayre on Sunday 22 November, in Lussy, was our foundation’s last event of the year. The items on sale included a vast selection of greetings cards, uniquely designed bags from South Africa, Jewellery from India and Romania, toys, delicious cookies, face painting, a presentation of Californian wines, comfortable cushions and many more items all designed to tempt the shoppers to get their Christmas gifts.

Refreshments were organised by four students from the prestigious Lausanne Hotel School. Axel Bernhard-Larson, Sophia Moreno-Paz , Wei Wu and Hui Hui Yang, provided the happy shoppers with efficient, courteous service, offering heartwarming pea and ham soup, cakes, cookies and hot spiced wine. From the many positive compliments, we must conclude that it was a fun event with a great atmosphere enjoyed by stall-holders and shoppers alike.

There was lots of interest in the foundation’s activities, with numerous potential volunteers wanting to be involved in future activities.

We wish to thank the sponsors of this event, including the municipality of Lussy-sur-Morges, “La Côte”, Peace Foods, Nestlé Suisse, Cereal Partners Worldwide, Uvavins of Tolochenaz, Sony BMG Music, Christiane Pauchard, and Pam Clarke.

100% of funds raised from this event will be given to the Swiss organisation “Cartons du Coeur” (“Food parcels from the heart”) for the purchase and distribution of food parcels to the many families requiring support, in our area.

At the Spring Flea Market, children were actively involved by donating their toys and books for the fair. Volunteers worked hard setting up on the Saturday, for the sale on the Sunday and when 10am came, the crowd was “beating down” the doors. For the next few hours there was a lot of selling and buying. From the refreshments stand to the old china table, from the books to the costume jewellery, everyone worked very hard and had lots of fun.

It was a great privilege and pleasure to finally exhibit the collection of Matthew Jordan Smith’s photographs of Indian Children, at the Art Gallery of the Château of Vullierens. The exhibition entitled “Listen to their eyes” was open to the public for six weeks, during which time it drew not only great admiration for the photographer’s work, but it was a most important tool in raising awareness of our foundation’s work to help children in need. We should like to thank our Board member Matthew, for his generous approval to use these beautiful images of children surviving despite the harsh condition of their lives. We will be exhibiting this collection of photos again next February at our fundraising event.