There’s only one story in Nanjing’s international community these days. And that would the second British Ball, for which hundreds turned out at the weekend in their 1920s glad rags to look the part, eat, drink and dance the night away, while raising funds for two incredible causes.
Originally scheduled for earlier this year, the delay to the date of the Ball as a result of COVID only served to heighten the anticipation. But this past Saturday, 17 September, the day finally arrived.
With the theme of Downton Abbey, Ball attendees at the Ritz Carlton, Nanjing, first got stuck into some champagne (well most of them, did), while mingling, networking and generally admiring each other’s outfits. A supreme, social-media-worthy dinner followed, before seven-piece Black Diamond took to the stage, brought in from Shanghai just for the occasion.
There were those who grooved, and those who gambled. Not for money, but as a way of raising more essential funds for the Ball’s beneficiaries, while attempting to pile their chips ever higher on the blue baize of the casino tables.
Erinda Demeti is Director of Admissions and Marketing for The British School of Guangzhou and Nord Anglia International School of Guangzhou. Demeti, who set up the British Ball last year on behalf of The British School of Nanjing, her then employer, spoke with The Nanjinger and describes the British ball as a fun event for a noble goal.
“It was not easy running the project remotely from Guangzhou, but my motivation and dedication has been always 100 percent. I wanted to create majestic decor, in which guests could be taken back to the old days in the Downton Abbey mansion, with long tables, candles and flowers, a vintage photo booth corner, and of course offer music and games for them to feel relaxed and not think how much are they spending!”, said Demeti.
The money they were spending was in the end to total ¥240,000, an impressive figure that shall be split equally between local charities, Hopeful Hearts and the Rainbow Centre.
Hopeful Hearts assists with funding life-saving operations for local children, often abandoned because of their condition, or because they come from a farming community and/or low-income families. Fully 96 percent of all money raised goes directly to paying for heart operations. Two more Hopeful Hearts’ teams operate in Guangzhou and Chengdu.
Set up in 2014, the Rainbow Centre provides palliative care and hospice care for critically-ill children, to make a bit of difference in the quality of their lives. Some children have afflictions that are simply incurable, others perhaps only months to live.
Thanks to the generosity of those attending this year’s British Ball, many more desperately-in-need children in Nanjing now have a shot at a life, or something that resembles one.
