Pilar’s Foundation founder Sylvia Nolasco-Rivers was born in El Salvador. Coming to the United States as a child, she has grown up wanting to help others in need and suffering. She is a local business owner, a community activist, and has lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan for 28 years.

Her first real experience in helping to aid and assist those truly in need came on January 3, 2001, when a devastating earthquake rocked her homeland of El Salvador. She reached out to organize an event in Ann Arbor, Michigan to benefit those desperately in need of earthquake relief in El Salvador. Working with Family and friends, Sylvia organized a food, music and cultural event in a local Quaker Friends House to benefit the SHARE El Salvador Foundation in San Francisco, California. SHARE is a United States based, grass roots foundation that works directly in El Salvador providing community-based funding and resources for local economic development in el Salvador. Sylvia raised nearly$5000 that went directly to SHARE and the El Salvador Earthquake Relief efforts.

This model of event fundraising and working thru established, boots on the ground, organizations became the bookmark of Sylvia’s fundraising philosophy. She has always strived to work with well known and reputable organizations to be assured that all donations that she raised went 100% to the recipient organizations and the work they were performing. She learned it is much more helpful and resourceful to help those that already know what they are doing.

On January 12, 2010, A devastating Earthquake rocked the country of Haiti, creating mass destruction to an already impoverished Nation. Because of the many people Sylvia knew from the Caribbean region and the memories of the earthquake that hit El Salvador exactly 9 years before, Sylvia immediately stepped up to the plate in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area to once again bring her community of Family, friends, and supporters together to do their part in working to help in supporting the overwhelming relief operations that were just starting in Haiti. Because of Sylvia’s concern that any funds raised for Haiti relief went directly to those in needed the funds in the field, She contacted and worked directly with Doctor Paul Farmer of Boston Massachusetts’s organization – Partners in Health (PIH). PIH has been in Haiti for over 30 years providing free health care to the impoverished regions of Haiti. Once again, using her proven model of a food, music and cultural event – Sylvia was able to provide nearly $8000 directly to PIH and their dedicated Haiti relief work.

Because the devastation in Haiti was so bad, and with an increasing need for more relief and medical aid, Sylvia stepped up again in March of 2011 and organized another Haiti Relief Fundraiser. Calling upon those who helped her only a year earlier, she was able to have another food, music and cultural event for PIH and was able to raise another $5000 to assist the work of Doctor Farmer and his PIH team in Haiti.

On April 25, 2015, a devastating earthquake rocked and destroyed much of the infrastructure in the remote Himalayan nation of Nepal. Hundreds of schools were destroyed with little hope of being rebuilt. After much research for an organization that was on the ground working for Nepal relief, Sylvia found that the United Nations UNICEF USA had a specific Nepal Relief Operation on the ground that was in the process of rebuilding destroyed schools from the quake. As a mother, Sylvia felt a pained need to help with the rebuilding of schools in Nepal. She went to work getting her core of relief event helpers in the Ann Arbor area once again organizing another food, music and cultural event for Nepal relief. She even got help from a local chef that was from Nepal to help make food for the event. With the smell of Nepalese food and music in the air, Sylvia raised around $6000 for UNICEF and the critical need of rebuilding Nepalese schools.

In 2016, with a sizable immigrant population living in the Ann Arbor/Washtenaw County area, there was a critical and growing need for the involvement of local churches and community organizations to provide support services and family assistance to those who did not have access to support services. To help assist the local churches and support organizations, Sylvia organized another of her food, music and cultural events to raise working funds for active local organizations called the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice and the Washtenaw Congregational Sanctuary Project. Thru her tireless efforts and wonderful food, the community came to support her, ICPJ, and WCSP by providing nearly $5000 to these two groups.

In August of 2018, a very dear friend of Sylvia’s, who was from Yemen, asked Sylvia to help organize a fundraiser to help with the famine and horrible war going on in Yemen. Not wanting to become politically involved in the question of Yemen, but shocked by the death and destruction being faced by all Yeminis, Sylvia contacted Doctor’s Without Borders USA to learn about their role in Yemen War Refugee Relief effort. DWB were playing a very pivotal role in Yemen and were on the front lines with Doctors helping all the wounded and sick on both sides of the war. Sylvia, along with her group of dedicated volunteers and families from the local Yemen community came together in Ann Arbor to organize another food, music and cultural event that raised nearly $3900 for Doctors Without Borders USA and their work directly in Yemen.

With a heartfelt and longtime desire to reach out to help others in need, and to create an ongoing community legacy, in 2019, Sylvia became inspired to form her own nonprofit Foundation and take her charity work to a higher and more rewarding level. A core group of longtime supporters forming a Board of Directors to help her reach this new goal. The “Pilar’s Foundation” was registered in July of 2019 as a “Not for Profit Foundation” in the State of Michigan. The Pilar’s Foundation goal was to continue to build on Sylvia’s well-established personal work in the community and continue assisting in fundraising for local, national, and international needs on an even larger and more effective scale.

The new Foundations very first event that was held on September 8, 2019 was to support local immigrant support organizations operating in Washtenaw County Michigan. There was much excitement to see the long-encouraged Pilar’s Foundation holding its primer first event, with Sylvia’s dedicated volunteers, supporters, friends, and family in the Ann Arbor/Washtenaw County area coming out to show their support. A target fundraising goal of $6000 (which was right in general range of her previous events) was set and all the proceeds were to be divided between four local beneficiary organizations:

• Michigan Immigrants’ Rights Center

• Washtenaw Congregational Sanctuary

• Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice

• Washtenaw Interfaith Council for Immigrant Rights

Because of the overwhelming response to the new Pilar’s Foundation in the area, supporters from all over came for food, music, and a chance to help the four organizations that the Foundation was advocating for. To the absolute joy of everyone involved, the goal of $6000 was vastly exceeded to the total of nearly $16,000. Sylvia and the Pilar’s Foundation supporters

were amazed by this amount and by the enthusiastic support shown to the new Pilar’s Foundation by the wonderful people of Washtenaw County. It was a joy, blessing, and a tribute a successful kickoff event, to present the proceeds to all of the supported recipient organizations.

The Pilar’s Foundation fundraising model follows the same methodology used for all the other fundraising events organized by Sylvia over the last 19 years. Contributors made cash donations or wrote out a check to the Foundation for a voucher to a specific event (Before the Foundation, checks were made out to the recipient organization) that also included food and event admission. All proceeds were then combined and then forwarded to the recipient organizations.