Photographs by Cara Gilbride for Fairfield County Look

Mary Jo Riddle and Tory Brown hosted their annual Girls Night Out Holiday Party. It is always loads of fun to catch up with old and new friends. Everyone seems to know each other and Mary Jo and Tory are the quintessential hostesses. Every year, there is a wonderful cause associated with the event. This time, it was UNICEF. The Bolivian Communal Banking (BCB) Committee is a group of dedicated UNICEF supporters in New England working to fundraise and advocate for the expansion of UNICEF’s women-led communal banking program to the socially excluded Amazon region of Bolivia. Through this integrated program, families will gain access to basic sanitation services, increase educational opportunities for their children, decrease child labor in mines and slavery, and reduce gender and indigenous gaps in the region through the improvement of the family economy and the creation of a permanent community-based support network. This project is based on UNICEF’s success supporting women-led communal banks in the North Potosí region of Bolivia. If you are interested in supporting this work, please contact Sarah Nethercote at 617-266-7534 x107.