Nonprofit group helps twins who lost both parents

They lost their father, Robert, in his sleep in 2008. Then, in August 2011, 14-year-old twins Sophia and Audrey Poitevent lost their mother, Traci, to pulmonary failure.

The girls live with and are being cared for by their elderly grandparents, Lynne and Joe Calcagno, and aunt Gina Calcagno, but times are not easy. The twins now are freshmen at a private and a Catholic high school – Sophia at Ecole Classique and Audrey at Mount Carmel Academy, and tuition nears $20,000 annually.

To help with expenses, friends of the teens and their parents rallied around the family at a Nov. 20 fund-raiser. The four-hour event with food, an auction and a raffle at Southport Hall raised $28,000, with all of the money going directly to the girls.

“It’s hard,” Audrey Poitevent said about losing both her parents, but she said being surrounded by friends and family who care helps.

Friends, family help out

Several close to the family have intervened to try to keep the twins’ life as normal as possible. Glynis Silva – who knows the twins’ aunt Gina Calcagno, and whose daughter Landis is friends with the twins – helped organize the fund-raiser.

“The main reason we did it was to keep them in their current schools,” Silva said. “I try to help in any way I can. They are missing out on their mother. They are missing out on their father, and they are missing out on their teenage years, too.”

Silva turned to the Friends in Need Foundation, Inc., a public 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, to conduct the event. Silva was familiar with the organization through Sherri Robinson, wife of Friends in Need co-founder Robert Robinson. Robinson  established Friends in Need with Robert Hienz in 1997.

Grew from a single event

Hienz, a CPA and one of the five trustees for the foundation, said the all-volunteer group developed the year after friends united to host a fund-raiser for another friend who was sick and had no health insurance.

 “We enjoyed that we all got together to do it and started talking about forming an organization where we could get together and do other good things,” Hienz said. “Now we pretty much do benefits to help people in need get through medical emergencies.”

Hienz estimates that 85 to 100 fund-raisers – about six or seven a year – have been held since 1997. Already this year, Friends in Need has coordinated seven fund-raisers. An application process determines eligibility, Hienz said.

“We look at each one to see if there is a need,” she said. “Ninety percent of the ones we get, it’s crystal clear there is a need.”

Once approved, a team works with families hosting the fund-raiser to determine the best type of event, Hienz said. Every event is unique. Friends in Need has hosted spaghetti and meatball dinners in church halls, events at Lions Clubs, more sophisticated events at Generations Hall.

“We feel them out for the best type of event for them,” Hienz said, asking, ‘What do you feel your friends and family would be comfortable paying for?’ We talk to them about who they are, who their friends are and their connections.”

Friends in Need will get event tickets printed, collect and sort prizes and auction items, send out e-mail blasts and provide volunteers to work events.

Friends in Need does not charge a fee or take any money from a fund-raiser, Hienz said. The group holds its own fund-raisers to cover expenses and help other families not in a position to hold a fund-raiser or to pay utility bills.

 “Whatever we collect, we turn around to use for the benefit of families,” Hienz said.

Sophia and Audrey’s Nov. 20 event was attended by many of their teenage friends, so it was made affordable for them. Even though it was successful, the money raised is not enough to cover all four years of high school, so Silva anticipates she may coordinate a second.

To find out more, e-mail [email protected] or visit www.fin foundation.org.

Christine Bordelon can be reached at [email protected].