The idea came about on 1st January 2012 when one of the LDF trustees realised that 2012 was a leap year and therefore, it had an extra day to make 366 days instead of 365, whereby the month of February has 29 days instead of the usual 28.
Taking this thought a step further, the following rhetorical question was posed : what if everyone gave this extra day to charity instead of just having it absorbed like all the other 365 days of the year in routine activities ? Taking just a small population of a medium sized company of 220 employees, this represents a full working year of the average person. Considering the population of a very small country of say 1 million people, if everyone gave that extra day to charity, it would represent a lifetime of a person living for over 2000 years ! The maths after that point gets quite ridiculous !
And so, the Leap Day Foundation was established in the Republic of Cyprus by 5 friends : Frixos Savvides, Chris Georghiades, Mehran Eftekhar, Christos Christodoulou and Mufid Sukkar, who resolved to stage a variety of activities encouraging people to give some of their effort, time or influence to raise money for charitable funds, without necessarily focussing on a specific cause. Over the past 18 months, a number of small and large activities were organised and run by the founding members together with an army of volunteers with whom the idea resonated strongly. Auctions, fun days, bake & sell, sponsored walks, give up smoking, lose weight etc. were staged and thousands of Euros were collected and distributed to families in need and other deserving causes. The latest event was a concert in an open-air art gallery near the city of Limassol, Cyprus. All the proceeds from this event were donated to the “One Dream, One Wish” children cancer relief charity based in Cyprus. Similar events are planned for 2014.
Although it takes its name from Leap years, the foundation resolved to remain active every year in order to encourage individuals and organisations to think of others and give their time/effort/influence to raise money for the deserving causes. Why don’t YOU help ?
For for enquiries, and further information please contact Anna Provata E-mail : anna@nestco.org
