PR Log (Press Release) –
Feb 25, 2010 – Friday and Saturday the Doha Marriott will host the Whatever It Takes Shop and Draw event to benefit the Twilight Children Program in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. People might wonder what a five star hotel in Qatar has in common with a shelter for street boys over 6,250 kilometers away in South Africa and the answer is baking and a sense of giving back to the community.
The Doha Marriott’s General Manager, Saeid Heidari, says “It is a great pleasure hosting the ‘Whatever It Takes Shop and Draw for Hope Event’ this weekend. We find the 21st Century Leaders Foundation’s mission of building a global community of immense importance and are thereby happy to be able to help them by providing funding and support for a series of events that will fund positive environmental and sustainable human development programs.”
The Doha Marriott is proud to actively participate in Marriott International’s “Spirit to Serve our Communities” program, a core part the hotel and resort chain’s corporate and social responsibility remit that is broken in to five signature issues: Shelter and Food, Environment, Readiness for Hotel Careers, Vitality of Children and Embracing Diversity and People with Disabilities. Heidari goes on to explain that, “The Doha Marriott’s social responsibility and community engagement program not only benefits the local community, but strengthens the global culture and now that Twilight Children created an in-house bakery, we are delighted to host a venue for the sale of Whatever It Takes merchandise to benefit them during our weekend brunch and also look forward to sharing our experiences and skills to help boys with the development of their own successful bakery program.”
Whatever It Takes is a unique artwork campaign launched by 21st Century Leaders Foundation. Leaders from the worlds of fashion, film, television, art, music and sport draw a “Symbol of Hope for the 21st Century” that is then developed into eco-friendly and ethically traded lifestyle products. Through sale of these products at retail outlets in Europe, North America and Australia the campaign has raised over 11 million Qatari Riyals (3,000,000 USD) the money is used to support more than 50 charities including those nominated by the celebrity leaders.
The Whatever It Takes Shop and Draw for Hope event is completely staffed by local community volunteers, and will be held in the main lobby of the Doha Marriott from 11am-4pm on Friday and Saturday. Children visiting are encouraged to draw their own “Symbols of Hope for the 21st Century” to be displayed at later events.
This sale includes unique products for sale such a watch with artwork donated by George Clooney, t-shirts with artwork donated by Whoopi Goldberg, an alarm clock with artwork donated by Donna Karan; and notebooks with artwork donated by South Africa’s own Charlize Theron—prices start at just 50QR (13USD). In addition to the chance to purchase these special products visitors will also be treated to cakes served up by the Doha Marriott’s master bakers featuring Whatever It Takes Celebrity Symbols of Hope.
The support of the Marriott for the Whatever It Takes and Twilight Children does not end with providing a venue for the sale—the hotel’s Executive Chef, Reinhard Fuchs will be recording a special message of tips of the trade and a recipe for cookies for Pastor Zwane the young man in charge of the Twilight Children Bakery. Although only 23 years old, Zwane obtained his baking certificate and is now tasked with teaching older boys at the shelter the trade so they might obtain gainful employment. In addition to heading the baking program, Zwane is also responsible for preparing 3 meals a day for the 110 boys residing at the shelter and cooking for the 150-200 homeless community members that rely on the shelter’s daily nutritional outreach program.
Zwane says, “The Twilight Bakery was started to reduce the shelter’s costs—we were spending over 11,000 QRS per month on bread.” Slowly the bakery has started producing extra loaves that they hope to one day sell to the community markets and stores to create an additional income stream for the shelter while providing the boys in training with real life work experience. Currently, they are selling small cookies and doughnuts for 0.45QR-3QR to local vendors but this does not raise enough money to allow them to purchase the much needed bread slicer, rolling pins, uniforms and bags that would permit them to sell loaves of bread to the community and become more self sustainable. The Whatever It Takes Shop and Draw for Hope hosted by the Doha Marriott will hopefully generate enough sales to help the young men acquire the materials needed to continue to grow the program.
Doha Marriott Chef Fuchs says, “I am happy to share my years of experience as a baker and my special butter cookie recipe with the Pastor and his students at Twilight. I look forward to this cross cultural opportunity the Doha Marriott and Whatever It Takes is providing me with and I wish them great success in creating an additional income generating channel for their center.”
For more information about this Whatever It Takes event please visit the Facebook fan page www.facebook.com/whateverittakes.org
Photo Captions:
Doha Marriott General Manager, Saeid Heidari, and chefs display Whatever It Takes Celebrity Symbol of Hope Cakes featuring the artwork of (front row l-r) Sir Roger Moore, Charlize Theron, Suggs and Lucy Liu.
Inside the Twilight Children’s Bakery (r-l) Pastor Zwane, Sakhile Mbele and Siphesihle Mhlomgo pose in front a fresh batch of sweets they will sell to the Hillbrow community.
ENDS
Whatever It Takes
Whatever It Takes is a unique artwork campaign launched by 21st Century Leaders Foundation. Over 600 leaders in the worlds of fashion, film, television, art, music and sport, have donated their artworks and have signed messages of hope for the future. This artwork is used to design and create a variety of lifestyle products which are then sold to raise funds through our world renowned retail partners which include Harrods, Selfridges, Bloomingdales, Macy’s, Lane Crawford and David Jones amongst others. Whatever It Takes works closely with their leaders to assist and encourage a generation of influencers to take ownership, engage in positive action, raise awareness among their communities, and champion the solutions to poverty and environmental degradation. Whatever It Takes raises funds for key global development causes, including poverty alleviation, the protection of children, and environmental conservation. http://www.facebook.com/whateverittakes.org
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