The International Table Tennis Federation's (ITTF) first official Dream Building Fundraising Dinner was successfully held on 17 May 2013 at the Marriott Rive Gauche Hotel in Paris, France, alongside the LIEBHERR 2013 World Table Tennis Championships.
The dinner brought together the table tennis community for a night of drinks, charity and entertainment, and raised USD 100,000 for the Dream Building Program, the Social Responsibility Program of the ITTF.
Funds raised will be devoted to 3 areas; Para Table Tennis, Development Programs supporting peace through sports, and Junior Programs to develop young talents.
The Guest of Honours were Mr. Wilfried LEMKE, UN Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSDP), and Mr. Vincent BOURY, French Paralympic Champion from the 2008 Beijing Games.
"Our relationship with the International Table Tennis Federation is one of our most fruitful partnerships, where our young leaders from all around the world continue to benefit from the expertise of the ITTF," said Mr Lemke, explaining that strong partnerships is of the highest priority to sustain sport initiatives.
This thought certainly held true as one of ITTF's closest partners, and Title Sponsor of the 2013 World Championships, LIEBHERR announced their decision to donate USD 50,000 to the ITTF Dream Building program.
Mr. Andreas BÖHM, CEO of LIEBHERR Group said: "We know that as a family-owned company active throughout the world, we carry considerable responsibility for society. We are convinced that we shall only achieve long-term success if we remain aware of this responsibility in all our activities. Therefore we are very happy to participate in this project and we wish the ITTF Dream Building program all the best for the future".
The ITTF is very happy to welcome LIEBHERR into the ITTF Dream Builder family.
"We are very pleased that LIEBHERR, one of our closest partners, has decided to support our development efforts with this generous donation during the dinner," said ITTF President, Mr Adham SHARARA.
"Overall, it was a very successful initiative, and we plan to continue to expand on the idea and make it a tradition to assist us to run more programs like the successful award winning Ping Pong Paix."
The ITTF welcomes everyone to the next Dream Building fundraising dinner.
For more information, please contact ITTF's Promotion Manager Matt Pound at mpound@ittf.com. For more information and pictures, please visit ITTFDream.com.
Asa service to our readers, Around the Rings will provide verbatim textsof selected press releases issued by Olympic-related organizations,federations, businesses and sponsors.
These press releases appear as sent to Around the Rings and are not edited for spelling, grammar or punctuation.
20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com, for subscribers only