“Look at the kids pray. They have nothing,” said Geralda Sarraf, founder of Love Together Brazil.
Love Together Brazil is an Old Westbury-based organization created by Sarraf. Its primary focus is to donate education, health, and clean drinking water to the Paraiba region of northern Brazil.
Sarraf is from Paraiba and grew up there before moving to Old Westbury. She created the organization to give back and help her homeland.
“I made a promise to god,” said Sarraf. “I am not going to forget where I came from. Who I am.”
In 2013, with the help of friends and family, Love Together Brazil was born.
The founders started small but have since evolved to taking on large projects with the help of ambassadors and students from local high schools who have dedicated their time to the project.
Early acts of Love Together Brazil include packing backpacks of school supplies and sending them to underprivileged youth in Paraiba. The organization says providing education is still one of its most important services, and it’s received donations from brands like Colgate-Palmolive (the toothpaste company), which donated to its educational fund and provided dental aid to Brazil.
Fundraising starts at home in Nassau County, with fundraising from small-scale projects like selling candy to larger ticket items, such as their annual banquet at Hendricks Tavern in Roslyn.
“We sell the tickets for $250. After paying the sponsor, the rest of the money goes directly into our mission,” said Sarraf.
Sarraf does not take credit for getting Love Together Brazil to where it is today. Since the organization was founded, Saraff has relied on friends and family to take her efforts to new heights. To expand her work, Sarraf expanded the program into schools and found student ambassadors.
“We have a group of about 20 kids. They are the face of Love Together Brazil,” said Sarraf
One such ambassador is Jordan Perlman, 19, of Brookville, who attended Jericho High School. Perlman is a family friend of Sarraf and has been involved with Love Together Brazil for over five years.
“When [Sarraf] had started looking for student involvement, she approached my son,” said Samuel Perlman. “And like Jordan does with everything, he dove in head first. He became extremely active and motivated to do whatever was needed and asked of him.”
In 2023, Perlman had the opportunity to travel to Brazil to represent the organization and see the extent of its work.
“We visited a hospital and provided them water. We visited a daycare and gave the kids AC. It could get up to 120 degrees in the daycare,” said Jordan Perlman. “The level of poverty there is unimaginable compared to poverty in the United States.”
While there, Perlman visited the site of several wells the organization funded and built. The organization has delivered clean water to 164,000 individuals struggling with clean drinking water.
The next project for Love Together Brazil is creating the “Love Together Brazil Center”. The center is planned to take LTB’s boots-on-the-ground activism to the next level, taking up over three blocks and servicing over 5,000 individuals. The LTB center will continue to enrich the charity’s commitment to education.
“We plan on creating a culinary school. And a place for students to learn makeup,” said Sarraf. “We’d like to have continued education for parents and a library open to the public. The center has been under construction since Nov. 2023 and is still not ready to open.
The accomplishments of Love Together Brazil are admirable As Sarraf looks to continue to grow the charity.
Jordan has since left Brookville for the University of Texas at Austin, but he still hopes to make a difference. He’s seen the results of Love Together Brazil’s work firsthand.
“It’s just incredible to see the look on their faces,” said Jordan Perlman. “It really made me feel like what I was doing was incredibly meaningful and that I helped make a difference in these families’ lives.”
