By Tim Saunders on
Celebrity crusader Ben Affleck was among the stars at the ONEXONE fundraising gala in Calgary, Canada, on Saturday night.
Over 300 people attended the event to raise funds for various children’s charities and recognize the OneXOne 2008 Difference Award recipients: Canadian hockey star Hayley Wickenheiser, the Calgary Flames, and five-year-old Jack Yeilding, who raised $14,000 for ailing children. And despite a few mishaps earlier in the night – the sponsorship backdrops fell onto the red carpet and caused chaos prior to the guests arriving – the event was a resounding success.
“You have to extend your hand to those who have fallen down,” joked Affleck. “Like our backdrop that keeps falling down, you see the good people from OneXOne continue to raise it back up. All of this [work for ONEXONE] has kind of served to remind me of how lucky that I have been, how much I’ve kind of benefited and how much I owe . . . to the world to try to give back as much as I can.”
Affleck also said he was throwing his support behind the charity – which raises money and awareness for impoverished children – because he is impressed with the work they have been doing. Last year’s benefit function in Toronto raised $3.2 million for the charity.
“I’ve spent a lot of time working in Africa and actually met up with ONEXONE a couple of months ago in Rwanda,” said Affleck. “They said ‘Hey, we’re doing this event in Calgary, would you come do this? Whether it’s being a father, or just feeling connected to people, or having a sense of maturity, I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to learn about Africa and the developing world.”
ONEXONE founder Joelle Berdugo Adler was also in attendance, and was more than pleased with the evening.
“When you see what’s going in this world and you see the problems in this world you want to shake people sometimes and make them understand,” she said. “You have to be patient and understand everybody has different things going on in their lives.”
Copyright © 2008 Look to the Stars
