Join Neighbour to Neighbour – Canada to Nepal (N2N) on Saturday, March 5, for a fun-filled event aimed at raising money to support victims of the 2015 Nepal earthquake.
N2N is a collaboration campaign between Renée Delorme, a Bragg Creek local, and the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. Hosted at Redwood House in Redwood Meadows, the event starts at 3 p.m. with a suggested entry donation of $25.
The event will feature performances from local musicians: Women Wine and Songs, Murray Rodgers, Scott Diehl, Leanne Copithorne, Tim Jeffrey, Val Hudson, and Jamie Newsom.
Those in attendance will also have the chance to bid, during a silent auction, on drawings and bracelets made by the children of Maya’s Children’s Home in Nepal and several generous donations from local merchants and talented individuals.
Speaking at the event will be the director with the Canadian International Development Agency, Ruth Chapiro. There will also be a video address from Gautam Wagle, one of the founders of the Pioneer Foundation – Nepal (PFN).
The event attendees will have the opportunity to try Nepalese cuisine and there will be games for children as well.
One hundred per cent of the proceeds from the event will go towards PFN, a non-profit organization based in Kathmandu, Nepal. The organization will use the funds to rebuild schools and facilities for the communities in Gorkha Valley, Nepal, the epicenter of the first earthquake that devastated Nepal last year. The funds will also go towards Maya’s Children’s Home.
In April and May of 2015, two earthquakes devastated Nepal’s infrastructure and claimed more than 8,000 lives.
“Over 88 per cent of everything that was in Gorkha Valley was destroyed by the earthquakes. They were very poor to start with and then their community was destroyed,” said Delorme, the event’s organizer.
This cause is important to her as she personally raised $3,600 through a benefit in April 2015 for the children’s home after she visited Nepal in October 2014.
“Six months later (after my trip), the earthquakes occurred, and that changed the landscape substantially,” Delorme explained.
She then explained that some of the money was redirected towards immediate relief efforts after the earthquakes struck. Then in June 2015, Delorme collaborated with the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Social Work to create the N2N campaign.
“The idea behind N2N is for people in the community to get together to organize small events where they can raise funds to assist PFN,” said Delorme.
According to her, she and the citizens of Bragg Creek and Redwood Meadows have raised $8,287 to date to assist the PFN’s first response to the earthquake (food, medicine, tarps, temporary shelters, school supplies and equipment) and provide continued support to Maya’s Children’s Home.
The March 5 event at Redwood House, which is a collaboration with Gordon McDonald & Bronwyn McDonald and the I.A. Foundation, is scheduled to run until 9 p.m. that day. For more information about N2N, visit the campaign’s Facebook page at facebook.com/canadatonepal. To make a donation to the campaign, visit gofundme.com/canadatonepal
