| For Immediate Release |
Media Contacts: |
October 22, 2009
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Puget Sound Donors Give Record-Breaking Boost to MIcrofinance Programs in Latin America
Seattle, Wash., On Tuesday, October 20, Global Partnerships' Seventh Annual Business of Hope Luncheon drew more than 1,100 guests who supported the nonprofit's microfinance programs at unprecedented levels. Together, Luncheon attendees donated $290,000, a 19 percent increase over last year and the most ever raised in the room on the day of the event. When corporate partnerships, ticket sales, gifts made in lieu of attendance and a generous match from McKinstry Company and the McKinstry Charitable Foundation are added to the attendees' contributions, the event raised a total of $800,000.
"We are grateful and humbled by the incredible generosity of the numerous donors and organizations who contributed to this effort," said Elizabeth Castleberry, Global Partnerships' chief development officer. "The clear winners, of course, are microentrepreneurs like our guest speaker Maritza Jiménez, who are so well-equipped to take advantage of the opportunity that microfinance provides to break the cycle of poverty for their families."
The highlight of the 2009 Luncheon was speaker Dolores Maritza Jiménez de Portillo, a 29-year-old storeowner and mother from San Vicente, El Salvador, the youngest featured microentrepreneur speaker in the Luncheon's seven-year history. As she shared with the Luncheon audience, Jiménez started working at age five to help provide for her family, who suffered not only from poverty but further privations during her country's decade-long civil war. Thanks to the credit programs of Global Partnerships microfinance partner Apoyo Integral, Jiménez has been able to rebuild her family's life. She owns land and a home, has started a successful general store that employs her husband as well, and is able to send her two sons to school.
"Nobody is born knowing-we have to learn as we do it," she recalled saying to her husband when they were trying to figure out how to launch their first small business.
Another highlight of the Luncheon was a keynote address by Costco Cofounder, CEO and President Jim Sinegal. Sinegal spoke about his interest in international development work, referring to Global Partnerships' work as "a delivery vehicle for hope." He also noted that if Jiménez had been raised in the United States--with the kind of opportunity taken for granted here-she might very well be the CEO of a chain of stores herself, given her talent and determination.
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**Note to media: For more details on Maritza Jiménez's life, see this online bio. We also have photos available of Jiménez speaking at the Luncheon and visiting sites in Seattle, including a special tour to Costco.
About Global Partnerships: Global Partnerships (GP) is a 15-year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding opportunity for people living in poverty by supporting microfinance and other sustainable solutions in Latin America. GP invests capital and management expertise in 28 high-performing, mission-driven Latin American microfinance institutions, which in turn provide microcredit and social services to more than 850,000 borrowers, focusing on women, the rural poor, and others traditionally underserved by financial institutions. http://www.globalpartnerships.org.
About the Business of Hope Luncheon: The Business of Hope Luncheon was started in 2003 to celebrate and support the work of Global Partnerships. The event was made possible in part through the generous support of the Matthew G. Norton Co., MCM - A Meisenbach Company, Coastal Transportation Inc., McKinstry Co. Charitable Foundation, Waldron & Company, Charlie's Produce, Concur, Cornerstone Advisors, Inc., Foster Pepper PLLC, Grounds for Change, Huntington Steele, Laird Norton Company, Laird Norton Tyee, Polygon Northwest Company, Seattle University, Stoneway Concrete and Theo Chocolate.
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