A new edition of the Daddy Daughter Charity Ball took place in September at the Cesianu-Racovița Palace in Bucharest, raising funds for the OvidiuRo Association with the purpose of stimulating reading among kindergarten children. During the event, fifty fathers and their daughters joined forces to equip the libraries of rural kindergartens in Romania where vulnerable children study.

"Besides raising awareness and money for the social cause we chose, the purpose of our charity ball is to raise our children in the spirit of philanthropy. We want them to learn to give much more than they received and will receive throughout their lives. There are a lot of children in Romania who have nothing or very little, so the cause we chose to support this year and for the foreseeable future is the "Read me 100 stories!" campaign initiated by the OvidiuRo Association," said Mike Costache, co-founder of the Daddy Daughter Charity Ball.

"Over the past two years, 475,000 books were purchased from the top ten children's publishing houses and were put into the hands of 200,000 children learning at the 1,966 kindergartens across Romania, which completed the certification process. All this was made possible through the hard work of ten wonderful OvidiuRo employees and with the support of two million euros provided by several major donors and a few dozen smaller donors," he added.

Many of the fathers who attended the event chose to "adopt" a kindergarten that will bear their family name, dedicated in the name of their daughter(s), in exchange for 13 monthly donations of EUR 100 or EUR 1,300 donated in advance. The organisers said this is how much it costs to equip a Kinder Library and to train the educators to properly read children the various 100 stories.

The breakdown of the EUR 1,300 is as follows: EUR 150 books/professor, EUR 100 books/kid's group (4 groups on average per kindergarten), EUR 50 training/professor, and EUR 100/kindergarten (logistics & monitoring implementation activity).

"On behalf of the small team of just ten colleagues, we thank you all for joining the cause we are working on. Thank you for making it possible to continue the 'Read me 100 stories!' project, through which we contribute to the early education of children, a vital element for Romania's future. We are grateful for the contributions of each of you," said Maria Gheorghiu, executive director of the OvidiuRo Association.

Now in its third edition, the Daddy Daughter Charity Ball is part of a series of charity balls dedicated to fathers and their daughters. 

The OvidiuRo Association was established in 2004 and has so far collected funds of over EUR 12.5 million, with which it has financed several social programs aimed at children from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as Each Child Deserves a Story, "Șotron" Summer Workshops, The Bag with two books, Stories under the magnifying glass, Read me 100 stories!, Reading Caravans, and many others.

irina.marica@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: the organizers)