Last Updated on: 13th September 2024, 09:31 pm
Fundraising for Cerebral palsy patient
On April 18th, 2015, Zumba practitioners from 5 countries will use the internet to connect in a Zumba marathon to dance and support Joaquin Chanquia for him to receive a stem cell treatment in Thailand.
Through an international fundraising activity, the parents of Joaquin Chanquia expect to raise money to take their son for a therapeutic treatment for his Cerebral Palsy. In the month of April the event “Chain of Master Zumba from Mercosur” will take place, which according to Joaquin´s mother is an activity that will help to take her son to a new stem cell treatment which takes place in Bangkok, Thailand.
This event expects to gather Zumba practitioners from several different countries, which are going to participate through a video conference from their own homes.
“On April 18th, a day after Joaquin´s birthday, people from Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile, will gather during 60 minutes to perform Zumba for a worthy cause. All the money collected will go to the campaign we created for Joaquin.”, said Marisa Carrillo, mother of Joaquin.
“We will use Skype to communicate to each other. This is a newfangled event in Argentina, so we are really putting all our efforts together to make it possible.” mentioned the organizer.
Although, Joaquin is a native of Villa Maria, people from Argentina are gathering for this event in the municipalities of Hernando and Rio Tercero, since their mayors offered their support to the activity. “We are currently considering doing the event in these municipalities because of economic reasons, basically,” mentioned Marisa Carrillo.
Regarding other fundraising activities, Joaquin´s mother mentioned an artistic event for mid February and the performance of Los Tekis, a local music band, for June of this year. However, they will not be continuing their soda cap fundraising efforts.
“We are no longer getting soda caps because basically we don´t have a place to store them. Luckily, every time we start the soda caps activity, we simply receive too many,” noted Marisa.
“This last time we were able to gather about 1,500 kilos of soda caps, which are going to be shipped to Buenos Aires during this week. During the previous campaigns, we collected about 10,000 kilos of soda caps in a six-month period.”
Marisa mentioned that every time is harder to obtain the caps, because during the same time, there are a few similar campaigns from other parents.
“Although we really appreciate people helping with the campaigns, we decided not to gather more soda caps and guide our efforts and time to other kind of activities that allow us to obtain more money,” Marisa said.
It is worth mentioning that the plastic caps are going to be shipped using over-sized vehicles from the Lancioni shipping company, free of charge to the Chanquia’s family. Also, people from the Rural Workers Union from Argentina (RWUA) are donating time and work hours to load the plastic caps into the trucks.
As a closing thought Marissa wanted to thank of all of those who have helped in their quest to bring Joaquin to Bangkok. “We want to take this opportunity to thank the Lancioni Company and the RWUA for their support. Also, we want to thank you all and everyone who have been next to us during these campaigns!”
This unique fundraising campaign is a great example for others who are in need of financial support for their treatment.