Liberty Hotel Helps Haiti


I liked this in HotelInteractive from Caryn Eve Murray

When southern Haiti was torn apart by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12, Rachel Moniz immediately felt shockwaves more than 1,500 miles away at the small, privately owned Liberty Hotel in Boston’s Beacon Hill district. “I asked for a list of employees who have relatives in Haiti, who have any ties to Haiti, to make sure we got aid to their families,” said Moniz, the hotel’s general manager. The hotel handed each affected employee $300 that same day to go toward their families, then donated an additional $500 to the Red Cross for Haitian relief.

But the Liberty didn’t stop there: On February 4, the hotel’s hour-long weekly fashion show, Fashionably Late, will dress itself as an earthquake-relief fundraiser featuring the styles of a local avant-garde Haitian-American designer. “We will pay for everything, including the models, and donate a portion of our bar proceeds from that night,” said Moniz. “We’re also developing a package for people who want to stay in the hotel that night and … we will donate proceeds from that to the global disaster relief organization Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team, “ she said.

Then, on March, 13, the fundraising will continue with a wellness theme, offering an evening of yoga, live entertainment and a silent auction. Moniz said the Liberty Hotel is also trying to pull together a celebrity fundraiser in the next two weeks to bring in yet more relief dollars. The scope of the effort is unprecedented for the Liberty, a 300-room renovated former jail on the bank of the Charles River, she said. “We help different causes and are immersed in any action where we can provide relief, but to be so direct and explicit about one cause, this is actually a first for us.”

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