Netherlands Trade and Investment Office (NTIO) Representative Menno Goedhart returned to Tainan City on Friday, where he donated the proceeds from the NTIO’s Holland Days in Tainan — which ran from Oct. 17 to Oct. 19 — to a Tainan City Government education project for disadvantaged children.
Goedhart gave NT$350,000 in proceeds to the Tainan government project, saying that although the festival brought a lot of happiness and joy, it was of even greater significance that the proceeds could help in the education of Tainan’s disadvantaged children.
Tainan Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair (?]) thanked him for the gift and said the donation “came at a good moment.”
Hsu also suggested that Tainan residents include the Netherlands in their itinerary if they were planning to travel to Europe, adding that visa applications were convenient and that the country was very friendly toward Tainan.
In the six years since Goedhart started at the NTIO, he has made a great effort to promote cultural exchanges between the Netherlands and Tainan, Hsu said.
For the past two years Goedhart had cooperated with the Tainan City Government to organize the Holland Days activities, Hsu said.
The event attracted almost 60,000 visitors this year.
Goedhart said he felt that NT$350,000 was not enough and vowed to increase the scope of Holland Days activities next year and raise NT$500,000 so that even more of Tainan’s disadvantaged children could be given assistance.
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