Lebanese Charity Drive Enters Guinness Book of World Records   June 1st, 2001
Time 4 Sharing.com, the worldwide charitable movement founded by Lebanese entrepreneur, Viviane Boulos -Tolan, major shareholder of Platinum International, successfully entered the Guinness Book of World Records in Central Europe. The charity created the longest human made golden gate bridge in Prague, involving 812 orphan children from all over the Czech Republic. This record breaking event made national evening news which is watched by an estimated 4 million viewers in the Czech Republic and was backed by Czech Airlines and GTS, the telecom giant in the Czech republic. Time 4 Sharing.com was established in November 2000 and organizes fun days for underprivileged children worldwide. Time 4 Sharing.com organized a spectacular children's festival at a sports stadium in Prague, complete with famous rock bands, entertainers, competitions, and games for over 47 orphanages in the Czech Republic this past Friday June 1st, 2001.  Volunteers from Beirut arrived to join efforts with 60 other Time 4 sharing.com volunteers from the Czech Republic, Germany, Malta and the UK. Earlier this year Platinum was responsible for creating and sponsoring the Czech-Lebanese friendship week and presented a Lebanese Cedar Tree to the Deputy Foreign Minister in the House of Parliament as a gesture of friendship between the two nations. Czech Journalists were taken on a 7-day tour of the New Lebanon for a special "Rediscover Lebanon" event where they met with many ministers and officials. Commenting on the success of the day, Viviane Boulos- Tolan remarked, "In our industry of timesharing, we provide luxury and enjoyment and fun vacation experiences to our clients. We now take these values to kids who could only dream of realizing a fantasy day of luxury and fun and raise awareness to create opportunities for like minded people to share their time, if only for a day. It's a great feeling", she added. "Overall, this has been the largest Time 4 Sharing.com event we have held so far. We have successfully prepared 12 events since our existence and this week we also sponsored events in Beirut and Bahrain. "It is such a pleasure to work with the children. Our focus is mainly to donate our time which is so personal and enriching!" commented Alyah Rafeh, Events Coordinator of Time4sharing.com. On the 31st of May, the Lebanese initiative, Time 4 sharing.com, was involved in the Special Olympics of Bahrain as they collaborated with the Special Olympics Committee to organize a very successful day for over 300 mentally challenged and disabled children from various institutions in Bahrain. That same week, Boomerang, the foundation's mascot, arrived to Beirut as Time4sharing.com had held an event for dozens of orphan children from a nearby village in the mountains of Baskinta. The children were given the opportunity to be part of the training activity for the Racing Club team of Jounieh.  The founding couple struggled for many years to have their own children, and after visiting a few orphanages around the holidays they realized the importance of spending precious and personal time with other children and the impact that it had on their lives. When the couple knew that they had finally been blessed with twins they felt it was time to take this concept of sharing time to a new level with underprivileged children around the globe It has lately been a vision of Viviane Boulos- Tolan to establish her own work of charity as did her mother, Laura Boulos, with the organization AMILI, together with her husband Lebanese business legend Fouad Boulos, now 86, pioneer of the television industry and the Telepherique in Lebanon. Madame Boulos -Tolan calls on all serious and responsible timeshare professionals around the world to get involved in their own community and organize special fun days for less fortunate children. "We are a 'FUN' raising movement" added Boulos -Tolan, "We are always on the look out for new ideas and we welcome any new suggestions on how we can help empower the lives of the underprivileged, and we are searching for other volunteers in Lebanon to further our work!"