After a month-long fundraising campaign organised by the Marriott International hotels in Indonesia, the hospitality group donated IDR 56,031,255 (or AUD 5,366) to one of the island’s most respected charitable organisations, Bali Children Foundation.
The fundraising was a continuation of Marriott Asia Pacific’s annual program, ‘Run to Give’, which normally invites participants to join an organised fun and/or competitive run. However, due to the pandemic, the group adapted the event and created ‘Virtual Run to Give’ back in 2020. The virtual campaign saw participants join an allocated running group on the popular application Strava, a running and cycling tracker meets social network. Each participant sets their own goals, track their progress and connect with each other through the application.
Whilst the goal is certainly to raise funds for a cause, a positive side effect of the Virtual Run to Give has been encouraging Marriott International associates to get out and get active, as well as invite the general public to take part in the community and objective.
This year, the program was held throughout the month of October (1 – 31 October 2021), and the Marriott International group successfully completed 49 events all over Indonesia — but this wasn’t all based on running, things were made a little more interesting in 2021.
Events were very diverse, ranging from fun runs, forest runs, group workouts, trekking, cycling, even mountain climbing, with a group summiting Mt.Rinjani in Lombok! In total, the group managed to raise IDR 700.000.000 both online and through sponsorships. In Bali itself, there were four events in total, one for every week of the month. This kicked off with a general managers (GM) activation, where all Marriott property GMs took part in 24-hour run around Nusa Dua BTDC area. The following week was a run & cycle relay involving all 21 Marriott properties in Bali. The event started from sunrise in Mandapa A Ritz-Carlton Reserve in Ubud and finish at sunset at Renaissance Uluwatu.
Last year’s funds were used to provide basic food supplies for associates with reduced or no pay, Marriott International distributed over 10 thousand Bersama boxes in 2020 and hope to provide the same support this year. Funds raise to support Bali Children’s foundation were used to provide drinking water and hand washing facilities for three schools in north Bali also to clean and repair two libraries in these schools to improve the learning environment for the children.
