Désirée McGraw and Heidi Hollinger organized the event in conjunction with the Westmount family co-op, a local group of parents who meet up once or twice a week while their young children who play together. McGraw, a senior advisor on foreign policy and humanitarian aid in the Martin government, got the idea to host the event when, as a new mother, she joined the playgroup this fall as chair the charity committee. She teamed up with her friend and celebrity photographer Hollinger to pull the entire event together in just over two weeks. Other parents in the playgroup volunteered their time and baked goods to help minimize costs and maximize proceeds.

Among the speakers were Belinda Stronach and Rick Mercer (co-founders of Spread the Net) as well as Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay, Jeffrey Sachs and Mia Farrow (whose personal photos of a recent trip to Darfur were on display).

The event took place on the eve of the Montreal Millennium Promise conference 2006, which took place the following day at the Palais des congrès. Former US President Bill Clinton was among the keynote speakers. This was the first of several annual conferences to be held in Montreal aimed at meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals to eradicate extreme poverty in the world by 2025. (For more information: www.unmillenniumproject.org">www.unmillenniumproject.org">www.unmillenniumproject.org )

Malaria claims more than 1.3 million lives a year. In Africa it’s the largest single cause of death among children under the age of 5 of age. When it does not quite kill, it has a repulsive efficiency to stunt growth and damage brains. Because it also targets pregnant women, it often kills mothers and orphans the children. To imagine just part of it, visualize seven Boeing 747s – the biggest plane in the sky – full of children, crashing every day. Yet with the proper, inexpensive tools – such as household insecticides and treated bed nets – malaria is a mostly preventable disease. Bed nets represent a simple but effective solution. Each bed net is coated with insecticide and provides a physical barrier to mosquitoes – so it saves children from being bitten while they sleep at night. Each net costs $10 and can cover up to 5 children. The event “netted� over $15,000.00 – enough funds to protect up to 75,000 children from malaria-causing mosquito bites.