PASS Engagement
The PASS Late Year Benefiz concert series has been held annually since 2003. Proceeds benefit charitable children's and youth projects in the Rhine-Main area as well as in developing countries.
The proceeds from the Late Year Benefiz 2024 will be used to support the construction of a school in Sierra Leone, Africa.
The PASS Late Year Benefiz was born out of a company Christmas party in 2001, where the idea was to make the event more beautiful, more interesting and more sustainable. From then on, it became a public benefit concert. After beginnings in the city hall Aschaffenburg, one moved further into the Capitol Offenbach and finally, starting from 2005 into the old opera Frankfurt.
Artists of previous Late Year Benefits were Candy Dulfer, Roger Hodgson (Supertramp), Inga Rumpf, Dieter Hildebrand & Roger Willemsen, Anke Engelke, Klaus Doldinger & Passport, Helen Schneider, Curtis Stigers, Ute Lemper, Max Mutzke, Culcha Candela, Tom Gaebel, Milow, Joy Denalane, Stefanie Heinzmann and many more.
In the past years, the proceeds benefited the following projects:
- Currently in planning: Construction of the 2nd school in Malawi with the Fly & Help Foundation
- Construction of the 1st school in Malawi, in Mzungu, near the capital Lilongwe (Tadala ABC Primary School)
with the Fly & Help Foundation (inauguration: 2023) - Construction of a school in Namibia (Oroutumba) with the Fly & Help Foundation (inauguration: 2022)
- Construction of a school in Madagascar with the Fly & Help Foundation (inauguration: 2021)
- The Ark Frankfurt
- Help for children with cancer Frankfurt e. V.
- Children's home Aschaffenburg and
- numerous youth departments of sports clubs in Frankfurt and Aschaffenburg
- and many more.
Even today, the PASS staff meets after the concert for an after-show party with a raffle. The proceeds from this will also go to the charity.
Educational opportunities in a country marked by civil war
After Madagascar, Namibia, and Malawi, PASS 2025 is also involved in Sierra Leone. 25,000 euros in donations from the PASS Late Year Benefit 2024 will go towards the construction of the “New Hope School” in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The project was launched on the private initiative of Prof. Jörg Klepper, MD, Director of the Aschaffenburg-Alzenau Children's Hospital, and Dr. Stephanie Flörke-Klepper, MD.
The civil war in Sierra Leone (1991-2002) was one of the most violent post-colonial conflicts on the African continent. Even today, great poverty, hunger and, unfortunately, violence still prevail as a result. Crime is particularly high among young people.
Thanks to the donation from PASS, the project can now be implemented within a year – originally several years were planned.
The NGO Commit and Act has been active in Sierra Leone for many years and focuses on training adults in the healthcare sector. Commit and Act also offers girls who have been victims of violence a shelter with medical, psychosocial and legal assistance. There are also projects for the prevention of violence, sustainable nutrition and education for children and adults.
Giving prospects. Enable education. Imparting competencies.
Inspired by the success of the project in Namibia, PASS supported the construction of another school in 2023 in cooperation with the Rotary Club of Aschaffenburg and the Reiner Meutsch Foundation Fly & Help. This time in Malawi, Africa. Proceeds for this had been collected by the company at the PASS Late Year Benefit 2022 in the Alte Oper Frankfurt. At the beginning of January 2023, the donation of 30,000 euros was handed over to the Rotary Club.
A school was to be built outside the capital Lilongwe, in a rural area, to promote school education and positive personal development of the children.
A suitable plot of land was quickly found: On the western outskirts of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, in the village of Mzungu. The municipality provided the land for the school construction free of charge.
Now a new school building with eight classrooms, staff room, office and toilets, a well and a solar system has been built. Furnished with school desks, chairs and teachers' desks in the classrooms. In addition, eight classes received new textbooks.
The size of the area allowed, parallel to the school construction, also the construction of a sports ground with two tennis courts as well as possibilities for playing soccer and basketball. Here, the children of the school - and also children from nearby schools - will be supported in their skills development through sports and mentoring programs. The partner for this is the Match Foundation, whose mission is to provide children with skills they need for a sustainable and successful future.
The link to tennis has to do with the local partner, the Match Foundation. Founder Tadala Kandulu, once one of the best tennis players in the country, owes her sport a scholarship in the USA. After her successful graduation, it was clear to Tadala that she wanted to return to her home country and give back and make a difference here. On the grounds of Lilongwe's stadium, she received permission to paint up a tennis court, set up a discarded net and began playing tennis with children from the nearby neighborhood - one of the poorest in the city.
The enthusiasm of the children was overwhelming. More and more came over after school. In the meantime, many children who would otherwise end up on the streets and, in the worst case, be drawn into crime, can be inspired to take part in this sporting activity in the company of other children and young people. Through good contacts in Germany, Tadala received donations in kind in the form of sports clothing and tennis equipment for the children. From the German side - the Rotary Club of Aschaffenburg was in charge here - it was obvious to bring the school construction and the work of Match Foundation together.
In the meantime, Match Foundation also arranges sponsorships for children who have good grades and regularly attend training so that they can attend a better school.
Facts Malawi project
Project type: Construction of an elementary school
Project plan: 8 classrooms, incl. teachers' room, office and toilets, a well and a solar system.
Target group: 400 school children
Country: Malawi
Location: Mzungu, Lilongwe
Project partner on site: Match Foundation
Status: Start of classes: August 2023 (school year 2023/24)
We are pleased to announce that another school construction project has been initiated in Malawi. Details will follow.
Donation result
PASS supported the fundraising project with a total of 30,000 euros! 15,000 euros were raised during the Late Year Benefit 2022. Another 15,000 euros came from the Rienecker family.
If you would also like to donate to school construction projects in developing countries:
Donation account FLY&HELP:
Westerwald Bank eG
IBAN no.: DE94 5739 1800 0000 0055 50
BIC: GENODE51WW1
If a donation receipt is desired, please indicate this in the reason for payment.
Although the PASS Consulting Group had to cancel its Late Year Benefit Concert 2020 - due to the Corona pandemic - it was a matter of course for the company to uphold its social commitment, especially in difficult times. In Oroutumba, Namibia, where an old church and makeshift tin huts had served as classrooms until then, an elementary school was to be built as part of a joint project with the Reiner Meutsch Foundation Fly & Help.
The project comprised the construction of an elementary school with two classrooms including school furniture and the construction of a kitchen including a dining hall for the purpose of school meals. PASS initially provided a sum of 70,000 euros for this purpose. Another 25.000 Euro for the school feeding project came from donations of our customers, partners, suppliers and the staff.
Our picture on the right shows the school grounds in 2021 after the construction of the new classroom building (No. 6) and the kitchen with dining hall (No. 4). The fence that was added around the site in 2022 is not yet visible in the photo.
In addition, solar panels were later installed on the roof of the kitchen building to ensure the operation of cooling equipment on site.
You can read more about the progress of the project in our newsfeed.
Oroutumba is located about 95 km from the town of Okanguati and 131 km from the town of Opuwo in the Kaokoveld, about 900 kilometers north of Windhoek.
The students there belong mainly to the Ovahimba ethnic group. There is an increasing desire among the Ovahimba to send their children to school, and the children themselves would also like to go to school. Likewise, the government attaches importance to integrating, promoting and educating the Ovahimba, as an archaic living community, into the social community.
They are now semi-nomads and one of the last remaining nomadic peoples in the world. Also due to this fact, the schools are not only schools, but also social stations, where the children have to live and be looked after during the school time, because parts of the family or even the whole family is on the move with their herds. An additional aspect is the enormous distances that the students have to travel to their homes (sometimes several 10 km).
Donation result
25.000 Euro have been donated by our customers, partners, suppliers and the staff of PASS for the later school meals for the children. THANK YOU!
70.000 Euro were donated by PASS Consulting Group for the construction of the school including kitchen and dining hall.
Another 6.000 Euro (construction of a fence) and 9.000 Euro (for solar panels for the kitchen) were provided by PASS.
PASS is also involved in the Bavarian Lower Main region. At our headquarters in Aschaffenburg, we support the Deutschlandstipendium (Germany Scholarship) scholarship and regularly sponsor particularly talented students at Aschaffenburg University of Applied Sciences (TH AB). PASS is a member of a support group of 39 regional companies, private individuals and foundations. In recent years, our Germany Scholarship holders have attended the “Software Design” course, which has been newly accredited in Aschaffenburg for several semesters.
PASS in Lower Franconia is also committed to providing educational opportunities for the youngest of the young: In 2024, the Rotary Club of Aschaffenburg's “Youth & Technology” project celebrated its 14th anniversary. As a long-standing sponsor of this special teaching concept – at numerous primary and elementary schools in and around Aschaffenburg – we give children and young people the opportunity to gain scientific and technical experience at an early age in special study groups. The Strietwald School in Aschaffenburg, not far from the PASS headquarters, is currently benefiting from this.
Our partnerships with sports clubs on the basis of sponsorship pursue purely promotional purposes. They are an ideal vehicle for achieving a visible, high-reach presence regionally, nationally, and internationally. We therefore see sponsorship less as part of our social commitment. Nevertheless, every decision we make to sponsor is also based on a fundamental affinity with our partners. This can be summed up very well by our fascination with team sports.
Teams sponsored by us can be found in men's soccer (regional league), men's handball (2nd Bundesliga) and women's soccer (upper district league).
