Mission 500 Raises More Than $18,000 At Expo Seguridad Mexico
Mission 500, a strictly non-profit organization partnering with World Vision and dedicated to serving the needs of children and communities in crisis, raised another $18,600 at Expo Seguridad Mexico, hosted at the Banamex convention center in Mexico City.
During the opening evening cocktail, Samsung, the host and sponsor of the event, donated a 42-inch LCD TV for a raffle. Local Samsung staff helped sell tickets and $1100 was raised: the winner was Charles Villareal a freelance/consultant.
The following evening, Expo Seguridad hosted its annual awards dinner, hosting over 240 people. Sales of tickets for the dinner raised another $10,000, and an iPad was auctioned off for $1,500 to Ricardo Guzman of Inalarm. During the show, the organizers sold ESM merchandise such as shoulder bags, caps, portfolios and pens, which raised another $1,000.
On April 23, the day after the show, Alan Forman, president of Altronix, and Glenn Patrizio, director of sales for LRG International, joined George and Andrea Fletcher to visit a World Vision project in Tulpetlac, about 45 minutes from downtown Mexico City. The local community center helps to support mothers and children who live in an area that can be best summed up as a shantytown, with no water or electricity in many of the homes. At the community center secretarial, computer, sewing and beauty classes are held for woman looking to find ways to make a living. Children also come to the center to learn arts and crafts, play and receive basic medical attention.
Forman described the visit as one of the most moving experiences in his life. After the visit Giprex, the organizers of Expo Seguridad Mexico, committed another $5,000 to help the program.
“This was my second trip to Tulpetlac and just like the first time it makes me thank the Lord for what we have,” Patrizio said. “The children and the rest of the people in the community are thrilled to be visited by sponsors of Mission 500 and World Vision. Their faces light up when we speak to them and the children really light up when we give them toys and the love they all seek. It was a very humbling and satisfying day for all of us to be able to spread some cheer in this community.”
To date in 2010, Mission 500 has raised more than $70,000 with events that included the run for Haiti in Miami, Security 5K at ISC Las Vegas and the Mexico effort. The $70,000 that was raised so far this year excludes ongoing child sponsorship programs implemented by many sponsoring companies.