“I’ve always wanted to support the community, and build Madison,” said artist and producer Cece Maravilla. “This is an important thing to do because I’ve always had goals and aspirations to give back to the youth of Madison.”
This coming Sunday, Maravilla and Alex Alvarado, in partnership with the Alvarado Real Estate Group, will be hosting a glove donation and food drive for One City Schools and Goodman Community Center, respectively.
Maravilla is requesting that folks bring new, unused gloves and non-perishable food.
Both One City Schools and the Goodman Community Center, Maravilla noted, are organizations she was interested in supporting due to their work with underserved members of the Madison community.
“I reached out to One City Schools because they know the work that they’re doing to help not only young students of color but they also have a really great system to help the parents as well,” Maravilla said. “They’re working in multiple generations within Madison and targeting issues of injustice and inequity equities that are really strong values of mine.
“We also wanted to incorporate food into the drive….we figured that food in this time is really important because the pandemic has been really trying for a lot of families,” she added.
Maravilla also noted that the event will be an outdoor “contactless event.”
“We’re going to have people in and out pretty quickly, and also it’s required to wear a mask. So me and the team will be there and we’ll all be practicing social distancing. And we’ll have to drop off areas at a distance from us as well. We’re going to make sure everything is sanitized and in case anyone doesn’t bring a mask, we will have extras there as well.”
In addition to the drive, Maravilla will also be hosting a raffle in which donors can enter their name to win one of five custom, artist-designed hoodies.
Beyond the food and glove drive, Maravilla added that “this is just the beginning” of her work in community outreach.
“I’ve always wanted to do things like this and so this, for me, is just the first step,” Maravilla said. “I would love to do things like this multiple times in the year and see how we can expand and work with more people and organizations.
“I just really wanted to find a way to support the youth of Madison both by directly supporting One City School and also just trying to inspire people who are my age and younger to see that they can do things to help build Madison and support our youths,” Maravilla continued. “And that’s such a value that I want to promote now and in the future and something I want to inspire other people to do and just show people that young people are capable of giving back and they are the people that we should be dedicating our attention and actions to.”
The event is also sponsored by Park Bank and First American Title.
The glove donation and food drive will be held on Sunday, December 20th from 11 am-3 pm at the Alvarado Real Estate Group office on 1914 Monroe Street. More information is located on the Alvarado Real Estate Group Facebook page.
