Contact: Jackie Pugh
Cal Poly Wheelchair Foundation
925-200-1154
jpugh@calpoly.edu
Cal Poly Wheelchair Foundation Kicks Off Fundraising Efforts with “Halloween Movie Night” Oct. 18
SAN LUIS OBISPO – Fundraising efforts have gotten an early start for the 2007-2008 Cal Poly Wheelchair Foundation, which is hosting a Halloween Movie Night with a screening of “Ghostbusters” at 8 p.m., Thursday, Ot. 18 at The Fremont Theatre, 1025 Monterey St., in San Luis Obispo. Tickets are currently beingc sold by team members and will also be available at the door for five dollars.
Other fundraising events also will be held, including “Tango for Three” an exposition to showcase photos taken in Argentina on November 14, 6 to 9 p.m., at the Performing Arts Center on the Cal Poly campus, a February benefit concert and the seventh annual Gift of Mobility Gala event on April 12.
This year’s team of 25 dedicated students, planning to reach a goal of $200,000, will send wheelchairs and perform community projects in Malawi, Africa. These projects include building water wells and creating an educational endowment for orphaned children.
The Foundation team exceeded expectations the previous year, raising more than $90,000, over the initial goal of $66,000, and sending 880 wheelchairs to Buenos Aires, Argentina in early September. An extra container of wheelchairs was also sent to Paraguay, where there is a significant need for mobility.
In addition to several wheelchair distribution ceremonies in Argentina, the students, alumni and faculty visited a children’s soup kitchen, cancer center, and recreational facility where they donated toys, clothes, supplies, and spent time playing and talking with the children. The team also visited Don Orione’s Pequeno Cottelengo de Claypole in Buenos Aires, a care-center for those who are physically and developmentally challenged, where it delivered wheelchairs and interacted with the recipients.
The Cal Poly Wheelchair Foundation is the first collegiate chapter of the Wheelchair Foundation, a non-profit organization leading an international effort to deliver a wheelchair to every man, woman, and child who needs one but cannot afford one.
For more information, contact Jackie Pugh at 925-200-1154 or email at jpugh@calpoly.edu.
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