19th Burns Supper: more than HUF 5 million raised for premature babies and sick children

At the largest charity event of the Robert Burns International Foundation (RBIF), the traditional Scottish Burns Supper held on 23 January 2016, the guests raised more than HUF 5 million for the child health-care projects earmarked by the Foundation – this year including the Neonatal Department of the Péterfy Sándor Hospital and the 2nd Department of Paediatrics in Tűzoltó utca.

The Budapest Burns Supper is one of the highlights of the ball season, attended by executives, ambassadors, business-owners and groups of friends. At the evening demonstrating facets of Scottish culture, the guests were entertained by a children’s choir, a live bagpipe performance, a young opera singer and Scottish country dancers, before being able to learn different Scottish dances themselves after the dinner.

Zoltán Magyar, founder of the RBIF and the Hungarian-Scottish Society, along with Douglas Arnott, Chairman of the RBIF Curatorium handed over the Sponsor of the Year trophy, the Puskás Ferenc – Sir Alex Ferguson Award, to Deloitte. The award bears the name of the legendary Hungarian footballer and captain of the “Golden Team”, as well as the Honorary President of the RBIF, former manager of Manchester United. The trophy is awarded to the most outstanding supporter of the Foundation over the year. Sir Alex Ferguson will hand over the trophy in person to Gerard Lucey, CFO of Deloitte, at a home Manchester United game at Old Trafford this autumn. The Loyal Toast was given by Caitlin Jones, Chargé d’Affaires at the British Embassy in Budapest to the 315 guests. As a special guest of the evening, György Szöllősi, representing the Puskás Ferenc Institute, handed over a copy of the Puskás biography to the Sponsor of the Year. This third edition with a foreword by Ferguson was published in December 2015.

What is special about the Budapest Burns Supper is that the funds raised from tickets, the raffle as well as products and services offered by sponsors for the are donated in their entirety by the Robert Burns International Foundation for charitable purposes. This amounted to more than HUF 5 million at this year’s event, which the RBIF will be using to buy special equipment for the Neonatal Department at the Péterfy Sándor Hospital, and helping to fund the renovation of the operatingtheatre and related facilities at the 2nd Department of Paediatrics in Tűzoltó utca. In 2015 a further HUF 10 million was donated to these two institutions for medical equipment.

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