Taken place at the beautiful Italian yacht charter destination – Portofino at the end of June, the Azimut|Benetti Yachting Gala 2013 was marked by an extremely important charity event. The aim to raise enough funds to put smiles back on the faces of at least 200 children born with facial deformities has been largely overcome, achieving a doubling. All the proceeds will be donated to the non-profit Operation Smile Italia Onlus Foundation, the partner of this event.
From the left: Eng.Francesco Ansalone, Azimut Benetti Group's Marketing Manager ; Dott. Domenico Scopelliti, Fondazione Operation Smile Foundation's Vice President ; Eng. Paolo Vitelli, Azimut Benetti Group's President.
The Azimut Benetti Yachting Gala, the event that brought together more than 600 Azimut Benetti Group clients in the prestigious setting of Portofino was not only a grand celebration of the quality of output bearing the “Made in Italy” label.
It was also an extremely important charity event held in partnership with the Operation Smile Italia Foundation to raise funds to finance important reconstructive plastic surgery operations so that less fortunate children can smile again.
The partner of this event, Operation Smile Italia Onlus – the Italian division of Operation Smile International, is a foundation consisting of volunteer doctors, nurses and health workers who carry out humanitarian missions in more than sixty countries around the world. Its mission is to provide reconstructive plastic surgery operations to correct serious problems such as cleft lip, palatoschisis, and the effects of burns and traumas. Every three minutes, the Foundation tells us, a child is born with these deformities. The task is enormous.
Since 2000, the year the foundation was established, up to now, Operation Smile Italia has been involved in medical missions and programmes in various countries, giving back joyful smiles to thousands of children, but most importantly giving them a future too, thanks to the collaboration with more than a hundred volunteer doctors, nurses and health workers.
The target that Azimut|Benetti Group set during the Yachting Gala – which it hoped to achieve with the help of all its friends and clients attending the gala – was to finance Operation Smile in a direct and transparent way, by raising enough funds so that at least 200 children can smile again and at the same time give them a bright future. But the result has far exceeded expectations: they will be 420 children who can access care through donations.
Santo Versace, the Chairman of Operation Smile Italia, said, “I am delighted to tell you how much I admire and sincerely appreciate the decision taken by the Azimut|Benetti Group, one of the very best Italian companies in the world, to support Operation Smile, and their commitment to give a future to and perceptibly change the life of children born with facial deformities that the organisation has been curing at no cost for more than 30 years.”
“The Azimut | Benetti Group, just like our clients, who have always taken an interest in philanthropic efforts, has been involved in various charitable works in the past,” Paolo Vitelli, Azimut|Benetti’s President pointed out. “This year we have decided to make the initiative known to the general public with Operation Smiles in the hope that it will encourage similar initiatives, and not only in our sector. What we particularly appreciated about Operation Smile was both the high level of transparency and the effectiveness of the use of the funds raised. Our minimum target for this initiative is two hundred smiles, but we are really happy we went much further.”
