Ovidiu Rom counts on corporate support

In line with the expectations of the event’s organizers, around 650 persons attended the Halloween Charity Ball. “We expect to be fully booked this year as well,” said Leslie Hawke, prior to the event. Hawke co-founded Ovidiu Rom with veteran Romanian teacher Maria Gheorghiu. “Whatever we make at the ball will determine our budget for next year, meaning the more money we raise, the more school communities we can help. This will result in more impoverished children getting into school at an early age, when it can really affect their brain development,” Hawke added. She further mentioned that this year’s event marked a special occassion, as it was the ball’s fifth anniversary. “We have moved the focus from an auction to a new concept to encourage all the guests to get involved and get a chance to win an exquisite celebrity item,” she explained.
Last year’s ball, with some 700 guests in attendance, raised 410,000 Euro. Over 90 per cent of those funds were allocated to supporting the NGO’s programs. Hawke expected some crisis-related changes for this year’s event, which she revealed to Business Arena Magazine in an exclusive interview: “Of course, it will affect our fundraising,” she admitted weeks before the event. “There were six real estate companies at the ball last year! But we are hoping that some of the loss will be balanced by the individuals who want to support our work and are willing to donate from their own pockets if they can’t do so through their corporate budgets anymore, or else by companies which have not been so severely hit by the financial downturn.”
As for the crisis affecting the NGO’s programs, Hawke explained that the entire 2009 budget for Ovidiu Rom was determined by the funds raised at last year’s Halloween Ball, so “there was not a major initial impact. However, we cut back on the number of school projects we took on because of the uncertainty about our financial situation, and that means we actually helped fewer individual children this summer than last summer.”
Nevertheless, Ovidiu Rom unveiled the “Adopt-a-School” program at the Halloween Ball, whereby companies and individuals can help disadvantaged children from poor neighborhoods by giving them school essentials such as shoes and book bags, and improving the educational environment through teacher training and better educational resources. “Our 2010 goals are to continue the ‘Scoala te face mare’ public awareness campaign, producing a second series of public service announcements, and to continue helping individual communities lower their school abandonment rates,” said Hawke.
After her ongoing and persistent activity for creating awareness within these communities, she continues to be amazed by Ovidiu Rom’s accomplishments: “five years ago, at the time of our first Halloween Ball, I think Maria and I both would have been astonished to see how far we have come in these first five years in terms of collaborative activities with schools and local communities around the country. More and more I see local authorities assuming responsibility for getting their poorest kids in school. That’s very encouraging. Five years from now, I would like to think that the national trends will have reversed – the school abandonment rate will be decreasing and literacy will be on the rise.”