Celebrating poor Brazilians’ triumph warms a cold New York night …
jess December 17th, 2007
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In a Times story about charitable giving, run the night before our Small Planet Fund gala, esteemed food and nutrition expert Marion Nestle responded to the question: How to decide which group to support?:
“People have to pick their issues, and I think there are plenty around.” And the story continued: “She selects the groups she helps on what she calls ‘a friendship basis.’ That is, she knows people who support an organization or, in the case of the Small Planet Fund, the founder herself.
The fund — founded by Anna Lappé and her mother, Frances Moore Lappé, author of the best-selling Diet for a Small Planet — gives grants to people like Vandana Shiva, who helps farmers in
We were thrilled! And the very next day the arts section featured my son Anthony Lappé’s graphic novel Shooting War.
That night, scary weather forecasts didn’t stop Small Planet Fund guests. They made our 6th Small Planet Fund gala the best ever! The party’s special guest was Luis Antonio Pasquetti, a 20-year leader in Brazil’s Landless Worker’s Movement (MST). This movement has helped over one-third of a million families claim and settle about 20 million acres of unused land in
My daughter Anna Lappé and I launched the Fund to support those, like the MST, who taught and inspired us as we wrote about democratic social movements worldwide for our book Hope’s Edge.
Antonio exuded such heart, sincerity and gratitude that I was deeply moved, as I felt all were. More than ever, I was touched by how many guests return each year travel long distances to be there. This night, bringing together so many people from diverse fronts of what I think of as “living democracy emerging” to celebrate and support the courage of our brothers and sisters in the global south has come to define the season for me. Next year I want to start a tradition of having guests shout out the organizations and passions they care most about or work for.
The crowd cheered full throat when Anna announced an anonymous $100,000 matching gift. We all then knew our contributions and winning bids on auction items would be doubled.
What a night of joyful en-“courage”-ment. The on-line auction continues, so please go to the Small Planet Fund website and know that your holiday gifts are supporting some of the world’s most powerful citizens’ movements to end poverty and rescue our environment.
- Frankie
