Hollywood philanthropist and South Florida business executive Mike Asseff recently launched a major charity initiative to help raise funds for six area nonprofits, including two Hollywood-based arts organizations.
Asseff, a Hollywood native and the son of Hollywood City Commissioner Patty Asseff, made the announcement at his March 5 wedding to his wife, Kendra, at the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami. The couple formed the Asseff Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, in 2010 to help organizations that are making a difference in the lives of South Floridians.
The foundation currently is raising funds for the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, South Florida Ballet Theater, American Airlines’ Wings Foundation, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, St. Thomas Aquinas High School’s tuition assistance program and the Bo Alvarez Foundation. The Asseff Foundation has raised more than $25,000 since its inception.
Mike Asseff, the co-founding principal and officer of Structured Asset Funding (dba 123 Lumpsum) in Hallandale Beach, said he and his wife, Kendra, a Marietta, Okla., native and a flight attendant for American Airlines, “share a common life value, which is to take every opportunity to give back to the community.”
The Asseff Foundation’s motto is “helping others help others,” and its goal is to assist as many charities, both local and national, as possible.
“Throughout the past 15 years, I’ve dedicated my time and resources to multiple organizations and charities,” said Mike Asseff, who raised more than $50,000 for the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. “I have found that each charity I have been involved with is important and valuable to the community. To choose one charity to support seemed a very difficult task. By setting up the Asseff Foundation, it allows donors to support one charity that can help multiple local organizations in their fundraising efforts.”
Six organizations will benefit from the Asseff Foundation’s current charity initiative:
The Art and Cultural Center of Hollywood, now celebrating 36 years of programming to the South Florida community, impacts more than 50,000 residents and visitors annually through its innovative gallery exhibitions, live stage performances and visual and performing arts education programs for adults and children. The center is one of only seven Broward County Commission-designated Major Cultural Institutions in the county out of more than 550 cultural nonprofits.
Hollywood-based South Florida Ballet Theater includes a professional ballet company and the Florida Apprentice Ballet School for students of all ages, and offers the Art Education Youth Program, a scholarship program for low-income and at-risk children in the community. Founded in 2000 by classically trained ballet dancer and choreographer Lynda DeChane-Audette and her husband, Joseph Audette, SFBT stages full-length ballet productions and smaller-scale performances.
The Wings Foundation is a nonprofit grassroots volunteer organization that collects and administers funds from and for flight attendants on the American Airlines system seniority list who are in critical need of financial assistance. Support is provided to those who are impacted by illness, injury or disability; are out of sick time; are without disability benefits; or have experienced a catastrophe or disaster that causes major hardship.
The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis is dedicated to finding new treatments for spinal cord injuries through a multidisciplinary approach that includes an international team of more than 200 scientists, researchers and clinicians. Co-founded in 1985 by NFL linebacker Nick Buoniconti after his son Marc sustained a spinal cord injury during a college football game, the state-of-the-art facility at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine is the world’s most comprehensive SCI research center.
St. Thomas Aquinas High School, which has provided a college-preparatory education rooted in the Catholic tradition to generations of South Floridians since 1936, offers need-based tuition assistance to qualified students through the school’s Student Opportunity Fund. More than $1.6 million dollars in financial assistance is provided annually to those students who are not able to absorb full tuition costs, which run between $8,200 and $10,200 per year.
The Bo Alvarez Children’s Foundation promotes water safety and helps children with special needs. The foundation was formed by Michelle Alvarez and other concerned parents after her 2-year-old son Bo nearly drowned in 2005 and suffered severe brain damage. The mission of the foundation is to prevent similar tragedies in Florida, where drowning is the No. 1 cause of death of children younger than 5.
For more information on the Asseff Foundation or the nonprofit organizations it assists, visit http://assefffoundation.com.
