Even on a rainy Sunday afternoon, The Hutong packed the house (ie our main room) for our very first charity film event, screening the award-winning documentary “Red White Black & Blue”. A film that we hold very close to our heart, it stars some of the same exceptionally bright and inspiring students The Hutong had the pleasure to host in Beijing just a few months back (March 2013).
A fundraising event initiated by The Hutong’s Education Director Josh Kernan and gungho Education Cheerleader Kristen Lum, they were the lucky trip leaders who hosted the group of incredible 20 girls and boys from the Inner City Education Foundation (ICEF) Rugby program in South Los Angeles. You can read more about The Hutong’s weekend program with ICEF here.
ICEF Rugby Group Conquer the Great Wall of China
In an effort to support and do what we can to help this admirable ICEF Rugby program to continue to travel abroad to different corners of the globe, we rallied our generous contacts in the Beijing community to gather a pretty impressive list of raffle prizes. A few of the raffle prize donors had the opportunity to meet the ICEF group during their brief visit to Beijing, while others were just happy to support a program with such an outstanding group of young adults.
Big Shout Outs!
- To our very talented Chef Sue Zhou for donating her time and energy to cook up a great spread of Californian bites for everyone who came
- the Beijing Devil’s Rugby Club for donating a gear kit
- Pie Squared Pizza in Shunyi who treated the group to a massive pizza party after their rugby match and donated two RMB 200 vouchers to their restaurant
- Real Coco for donating 2 dozen packs of refreshing Coconut Water
- Two Guys and a Pie for hooking us up with vouchers to their awesome Aussie meat pies
- The Hutong’s very own TCM guru Weijin Vun for donating a voucher for a facial rejuvenation treatment valued at RMB 400
- Alameda restaurant for two vouchers for dinner for two
- The Hutong for donating their space and several vouchers for free cooking classes
- A massive hug to the very generous Hatsune Restaurant Group for donating a RMB 500 voucher to their legendary Californian-Japanese style sushi restaurant.
Thanks to all our generous sponsors and all our Hutong friends and community, we raised a grand total of RMB 4,775 for ICEF!!
All proceeds from The Hutong’s screening will help pay for ICEF’s school-based and international programs so that they can continue to spread their inspiring spirit, genuine curiosity and positive energy to other corners of the world.
“My expectations for the film were very low going in. I was just going to be supportive. I was extremely surprised by how much I enjoyed the documentary and I found the story very inspiring. It made me want to become involved in more events at the Hutong.” – Doc aka Decater Collins, film fundraiser attendee
About ICEF Public Schools
ICEF Public Schools was founded in 1994 with the goal to transform the South Los Angeles community by providing high-quality educational opportunities for its students and preparing students to attend and compete academically at the top 100 colleges and universities in the nation. ICEF has achieved great success in closing the achievement gap for African-American and Latino students through an established K-12 model based on academic rigor, high expectations for its students, parental involvement and rich extracurricular offerings in athletics and performing/visual arts. ICEF currently serves over 4,200 students, 81 percent of whom are African-American, 16 percent are Latino and 82 percent are low-income, across 14 elementary, middle and high schools across South Los Angeles. To learn more about ICEF Public Schools, visit http://www.icefps.org.
About “Red, White, Black and Blue”
“Red, White, Black and Blue” is a documentary film chronicling the ICEF rugby program’s tour of New Zealand in spring 2012. Shot in both Los Angeles and New Zealand, the film follows 38 male and female high school rugby players as they travel abroad to play international teams, interweaving rugby matches with features of several students. “Red, White, Black and Blue” provides a sensitive take on a rough game, blending on-field triumph with off-field tragedy.
“Red White Black & Blue” won Best Documentary and Honorable Mention for Best Director at the Idyllwild Cinema Fest in January. It received the Canada International Film Festival’s 2013 Rising Star Award and is a finalist in the Africa World Documentary Film Festival, which will have screenings in the United States, United Kingdom, and Africa. Locally, it was recently screened at the Pan African Film & Arts Festival in Los Angeles.
Click here for the youtube film trailer, or here for the vimeo trailer.
Stay tuned for news of their newest documentary following their recent China Trip 2013 (which will most definitely feature The Hutong)!
