The season for volunteers has begun! Our first visitors of the year were a group of juniors and seniors from the Canterbury School, a boarding and day school in New Milford, CT. This is the second year that Canterbury has sent students during spring break to come work and spend time with the children at our Cusmapa Campus.

The seven high schoolers worked mainly on helping with the building of a new library. Junior Matt C. reports, "Helping to build the library was hard manual work which most of us were not used to doing, but just knowing that the library will be a much needed addition to improve the facility pushed us to keep going. I can not wait to see the finished product and all the young eager faces wrapped up in a story book or working on a project." We hope the library will be completed by June, or as soon as we can secure the last needed funding.

The students also spent time working with the center's children, getting to know about Nicaragua's culture, and becoming avid fans of churrasco and chimichurri. Now back at school, their chaperone reports that she is hosting them soon for a Nicaraguan feast as they are apparently going through Cusmapa withdrawal!

Fabretto would like to thank The Canterbury School and the students' parents for sending this great group of young adults to spend time with us. All of the staff at the center were impressed with their dedication, good will, and character. We count on them returning next year, ready to put some muscle into a new project and inspiring our young students to continue with their own studies and good works.

Last Friday, March 31st, we hosted a great event at the Nikki Beach Club in Miami. The turn out was phenomenal and we are delighted that in only four years, Miami is becoming one of our premier annual events. We would like to thank all the staff at Nikki Beach who were incredibly helpful and generous. Also, we are very grateful for the Nicaraguan Consulate's support. But mostly, the staff of Fabretto would like to extend its deepest thanks to the members of the Miami Benefit Committee who did an outstanding job in getting their friends and co-workers to come out and support us. It was a great event and we look forward to working with them again next year!

But it doesn't end there - in less than three weeks Fabretto will be hosting what is traditionally our biggest event of the year in New York City at Nikki Midtown and The W Hotel. During the dinner part of the evening, we will be honoring Lucia & Jack Penrod -long time supporters of Fabretto and founders of Nikki Beach in Miami, exclusive clubs around the world, Nikki Style Magazine and more. Our star emcee will be Norah O'Donnell, Chief Washington Correspondent for the NBC Evening news with Brian Williams and for MSNBC.

The evening promises to be very glam and we hope you will consider joining us. Tickets for 2 to the Fiesta are $200 until April 8. After that tickets will be $150 per person. Tickets to the Honoree Dinner and Fiesta are $500 and reservations are needed. If you would like to be an Event Sponsor, please call 703-683-6101 for more information. And if you cannot attend, please consider making a contribution in support of this great event.

This month we are launching our new House Party system. It's a fun and easy way for you to help Fabretto spread the word about our work, introduce new supporters to the organization, find sponsors for our children, and raise money so that we can help more children with better services.

Here's how it works. You invite your family, friends or co-workers to a party that you host. The format can be anything that you choose - a sit-down dinner, a cocktail party, a back yard BBQ, a pool party. We provide you access to an online hosting sytem from which you can use the invitation templates provided, send your invitations and manage your guest list. We will work with you prior to your Party to help you in any way we can, and about a week before, we will send you a Party Kit to help you with raising awareness and donations.

The Party Kit will include our video, general and sponsorship brochures, program descriptions with display boards, baskets and other crafts from our programs in Nicaragua, and other fun items. Also, we will make a staff member available via conference call during your event so that your guests can ask questions directly of one of us. In other words, we'll do everything we can to help you help us. Please think about it!

Charitable Gift Annuities are one of the easiest and most popular ways for donors to make a charitable gift to their favorite organization while securing a lifetime income stream for themselves. By establishing a Charitable Gift Annuity, you can assist The Fabretto Children?s Foundation in meeting its current and future funding needs while giving yourself financial and tax benefits. For more information on how this kind of planned giving gift works, please see the full article on our website.