While most people have been staying home here in the cold Midwest, Indiana Partners President Rosane Zelmanovitz was finally able to travel to warmer Rio Grande do Sul for a couple weeks earlier this month. Although she visited family and friends, she also focused some time to meet with Rio Grande do Sul Partners President Lucia Helena Araújo Lima and other RS Partners members.
While she was there, she was finally able to visit the Centro Social Madre Madalena in Porto Alegre that we’ve heard so much about with Lucia Helena and RS Partners’ Vice President Sofia Lucca. This is the community center that the RS Partners chapter adopted to support, so she got busy helping to distribute around 50 donation kits of goodies and treats, balls with the Partners logo on it for the kids, and facemasks to give to the families who depend on this center for assistance.
One of the best pieces of news is that with the money that Indiana Partners donated to their cause along with money they raised themselves, the center will be able to update their kitchen facilities to meet the fire codes. They also run a bakery that teaches high school students the basics of baking so they can use these skills to get apprenticeships at bakeries around the city. And the bread they bake is served to the children and elderly groups that come to the center each day for various activities. It sounds like a win-win experience! You could even say they are rising to the occasion.