Dana Hughes Moorehead, left, and Susan Lidstone make plans for the live auction at the March 1, 2014 African Soiree to benefit UFAR.
Susan Lidstone loves to leverage her design skills to raise money for her favorite charity — United Front Against Riverblindness (UFAR).
As chairman of the annual African Soiree, the Princeton resident crafts eye-catching invitations, decor, door prizes, and take-home gifts.
For the fifth annual event she is using the theme of African folklore, and she hopes to raise enough money to keep thousands of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from going blind.
Founded by Dr. Daniel Shungu, UFAR is an African-inspired, Lawrenceville-based nonprofit charitable organization that aims, in partnership with other organizations, to eradicate onchocerciasis, a major public health problem in the Kasongo region of the DRC (riverblindness.org).
Set for Saturday, March 1, from 5:30 to 8 p.m., the African Soiree will be held in the main lounge of Mackay Center at Princeton Theological Seminary, 64 Mercer Street.
After a sumptuous buffet of international and African cuisine, actor Scott Langdon and UFAR founder and executive director Daniel Shungu will narrate stories from the rich tradition of African folk tales. There will also be a live auction, an African market, and a showing of African fashions.
The menu includes food from the DRC (chicken moamba, fufu, and banana snack), from Ghana (goat meat, waakye rice and beans, and chin chin snack), from Nigeria (chicken curry and yellow rice), and from Ethiopia. The African food is donated, so profits go directly to the charity.
A special award will be presented to the family of the late Peter Meggitt, a Princeton resident who traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo five years ago with a Princeton United Methodist Church (PUMC) mission team.
Michele Tuck-Ponder, a member of the PUMC mission team, will call the live auction of items assembled by Dana Hughes Moorehead; both are Princeton residents.
In the auction are a specially designed copper bracelet from Randi Forman of Nassau Street-based Forest Jewelers, a needlepoint picture, a painting by Rhinold Lamar Ponder, and a quilt that Tuck-Ponder made from African fabric. Aruna Arya, owner of the Palmer Square-based fashion store Zastra, will donate one of her designs. Elsie McKee will contribute items made by a Congo-based charity, Woman, Cradle of Abundance.
A professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and a member of Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church, McKee is in charge of local arrangements and the African market.
More than one-third of the 60 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo are at risk for getting riverblindness. Caused by a parasite and transmitted by the black flies that live near the river, the disease takes two lives — the life of the adult who goes blind, and of the sighted child who must leave school to be the caretaker.
The medicine is provided free by Merck & Co., but the distribution is a challenge. Using a community-directed approach that involves villagers who are appointed by their village chief, UFAR is able to treat more than two million persons each year. Annual treatment for each person in required for ten years to eliminate the disease.
Between ticket sales, auction proceeds, and donations, last year’s African Soiree raised $12,000, or enough to treat 24,000 Congolese for one year. “This is a wonderful cause, and I know we are making a difference,” Lidstone said.
For $60 reservations ($30 for students) contact Lidstone at UFAR@PrincetonUMC.org or 609-688-9979 or mail to 5 Campbelton Road, Princeton, NJ 08540. Offstreet parking is free.
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