The first Ladies Coffee Night of 2015, held on January 15th, was again a special night full of fun, valuable information, and social networking. This month's topic was Alzheimer’s disease and Kelly McCann, the Chief Program Officer at Alzheimer’s Association (Houston&Southeast Texas Chapter) made a very informative presentation on the topic and answered the questions from the audience.

You and your family are invited to the Special Screening of Turkish Movie titled “Birleşen Gönüller” “Two hearts in one” in Turkish with English subtitle.

Saturday, January 31, 2015  7:00 pm.

AMC Theater 2949 Dunvale Road, Houston, TX 77063

No kids below 6 are allowed.

Everyone including kids at 6 and above needs to purchase ticket to attend the event.

At the entrance you can show the print out of your ticket. Without ticket, you are not able to get in the movie theater. The movie starts at 7:00 PM.

Roomful of enthusiastic women attended Austin Ladies' Coffee Night at Raindrop Turkish House on December 12.  

During networking and dinner session guests had a chance to visit the Calligraphy Art booth. Diler Unal, Turkish Calligraphy artist, prepared a customized bookmark for each visitor on the spot.

This time our guest organization was Asian Family Support and Services of Austin, a local non-profit which provides assistance to Asian and other immigrant families dealing with domestic violence, sexual assault and trafficking. Everyone attending had a chance to visit their booth and learn more about the organization, pick up a flier and talk to the representative Thuy Bishop who gave brief information about their services. 

The master of the ceremony was Lisa Pazienza. Her strong positive energy spread around the room when she lead the first icebreaker game. She moderated the program in a joyful way throughout the night. 

Honorable Dolores Ortega-Carter, Travis County Treasurer, delivered the keynote speech. Her topic was "Tips for an effective household budget". She talked about similarities managing a county budget with a household budget, discussed the ways of saving money and spending it wisely and non-sporadically including during the festive season. Her examples were very clear so all guests could associate and remember some useful tips for the future.

 The evening culminated with a performance by Julie Slim and Layalina Band. Julie's beautiful voice truly touched our hearts while she sang in Arabic accompanied by band's performance playing authentic instruments. 

The Turkish-American community condemns detentions of Ekrem Dumanli, editor-in-chief of highest circulating newspaper in Turkey, Zaman daily, Hidayet Karaca, chief executive of Samanyolu Media Group, and dozens of others, on phony charges, as a blatant breach of press freedom and rule of law.

Dumanlı and Karaca were detained along with more than 20 people in a nationwide operation early on Sunday, December 14, 2014. A list of suspects to be detained, released by İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, shows that a total of 32 people are to be detained.

The suspects are accused of "forming, leading or being a member of an armed terrorist organization," "forgery" and "slander," according to a statement released by the prosecutor's office.

On Friday, December 5th, 2014, the Raindrop Foundation and Embrace Relief had the opportunity to team up with ABC 13 local news station and the Houston Food Bank for their annual Share Your Holidays Food Drive. The purpose of the drive is to collect food donations for our neighbors who are currently living at or below the poverty line. With the prices of food and transportation rising, many families and individuals are finding it increasingly difficult to choose between putting food on the table and paying their rent/mortgage. Katherine Whaley from ABC 13 local news studio reported the event live from the Raindrop Foundation’s Turquoise Center, which was the designated food drop off location.