Daughters keep Dora’s Dream alive: A Taste Of Africa fundraiser thrives online

Barb Anie knew that her first time staging the annual A Taste Of Africa event without the leadership of her late mother would be a challenge but never suspected the thing would have to be entirely rethought, as a result of COVID-19.

When the inspiring Dora Anie died last year at age 69 after a life of giving and selflessness (I wrote about it at the time), her daughters Barb and Ann Marie. and others close to her, vowed to keep up the work she did with her popular fundraiser

Did they ever keep up her work, with up" being the operative word (especially as pertains to donation totals), but not in the way anyone imagined, especially them.

A Taste of Africa is an annual meal/dance/showcase that raises money for the building and betterment of schools, especially for girls, in Dora Anie's native country of Ghana, from which she emigrated in 1973. The event, sponsored by Dora's Schools of Dreams charity, was a sensory delight but it was a year-long effort and only got put together at the cost of much time, organization and energy, what with food, entertainment, gifts, emceeing, etc.

When everything shut down with the pandemic, they thought about doing nothing, says Barb, but they didn't want to leave a big void marking their first attempt without the inimitable Dora, so they considered delaying it from the spring to summer. But there was such uncertainty.

So," says Barb, we pivoted to an online initiative but there was still so much effort and there were going to be so many restrictions. Then we thought, How do we think big? How do we set a large target?'"

It's something, Barb explains, that she and her sister and the Schools of Dreams team have been considering for a while. Undertaking the kind of big push that would make Schools of Dreams less reliant on A Taste of Africa for the lion's share of the fundraising.

But what a time to think big." During a pandemic? Why not?

Mom (Dora) made a large legacy donation to the charity," says Barb, and there was a corporate gift from L'OREAL Paris of $10,000 (they were selected as the recipient of the proceeds of their Christmas market)."

Then there was a substantial donation from the Rotary Club of Stoney Creek.

Altogether, the L'OREAL gift, the Rotary Club of Stoney Creek donation and Dora's contribution represented what The Schools of Dreams Board of Directors (all volunteers) calls three seed" donations, toward a goal of $60,000, four times more than A Taste of Africa ever raised. And the plan was to call the online drive Dora's Dream.

As Dora's Dream, the 2020-renamed A Taste of Africa was, by necessity, robbed of its aromas and tastes as well as its musical and social flavours. But, people from all over the world are giving, and not just against the one night of a scheduled event as in the past but continuously through the summer as the Schools of Dreams drive continues.

It was an ambitious plan, an enormous undertaking.

But the Schools Of Dreams team set themselves to the task, reconnecting with all the prize donors and telling them of their plan. They have rallied their support and asked donors, volunteers, contributors and supporters to gather themselves into virtual building crews" and practice peer-to-peer networking to muster pledges and donations.

The three seed" donations amounted to just over $20,000. Already the peer-to-peer networking (social fundraising) online donation portion of the campaign has raised more than $30,000, $10,000 more than the original assigned $20,000 goal. The last $20,000 of the total goal of $60,000 is to come from online auctioning and direct mail.

Schools Of Dreams is also creating a memory wall where donations of $100 or more will get your name or a name of someone you want to honour on an actual wall of the next Schools of Dreams building in Ghana, which will be named for Dora Anie.

For Dora, building schools in Ghana was a lifelong passion. She grew up relatively privileged in the village of Mepom but saw all around her the near insurmountable struggle of villagers trying to keep children in school. That's where the first school was built.

Of her Grade 8 class, only Dora went to high school.

She came to Canada in 1973, settling ultimately in Hamilton. But she returned often to her homeland, saddened to see the foreshortening of education, the girls having babies young, too many boys taking to drink. In 2004, she kept a promise to herself. To help. Hence the Ghana Schools of Dreams and the A Taste Of Africa annual fundraiser.

She died last year of ovarian cancer at age 69.

It's so interesting," says Barb. It feels like we're going to turn this into an annual fundraising, shifting our effort and allowing us to use the physical ATaste of Africa as more of a celebration" than the fundraising linchpin that it has been.

There won't be so much riding on it as before. It won't be the chief fundraiser.

This has made us rethink our whole paradigm."

All the money raised goes toward building new schools in Ghana and improving existing one.

To contribute to Dora's Dream, visit schoolsofdreams.ca

Jeff Mahoney is a Hamilton-based reporter and columnist covering culture and lifestyle stories, commentary and humour for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jmahoney@thespec.com