California Card Room Coalition Donates $20,000 to the National Indian Child Welfare Association

PORTLAND, Ore., April 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA) announced today, at its annual convention in Portland, that a coalition of California's largest card rooms has donated $20,000 to the organization. The announcement was made by NICWA president, Maurice Lyons.

NICWA executive director Terry Cross said, "With federal cutbacks to many Indian programs and the economy's impact on traditional support, the card rooms' donation represents a major gift and will help NICWA continue its mission to protect our children and preserve our culture."

Lyons, who is also vice chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, said the card rooms began working with Morongo last year.

"We have been working with the card room industry leaders to introduce online poker in California. If we succeed, it will mean millions in new revenue for gaming and non-gaming tribes," explained Lyons. "During one of our meetings, I had the opportunity to talk about NICWA's mission."

The card room coalition is made up of four major Los Angeles-based gaming properties - the Bicycle Casino, Commerce Casino, Hollywood Park Casino and Hawaiian Gardens Casino. Leo Chu, Haig Kelegian, Tom Malkasian, Haig Papaian and Ron Sarabi are the casinos' management principals and owners.

"When we learned about NICWA's work from Maurice Lyons, we made the decision to donate $20,000 to NICWA," said card room coalition partner Haig Papaian. "Our partnership is very diverse - one of our partners is Chinese, three are Armenian and one is Syrian. And all of us have been involved for a long time with children's causes for our own homelands."

Lyons said the history of the Armenian genocide played a role in how card room owners responded to NICWA.

"In the early 1900's, Armenian people were removed from their lands and children, families and whole villages were massacred. So we share the tragedy of genocidal history with them," said Lyons. "Armenia is now among the poorest countries in the world. Nearly half the population lives in poverty and unemployment is as high as 30 percent. One out of seven families is unable to meet basic food, clothing, and housing needs. Here in America, these are statistics that Indian Country knows first hand only too well."

"We understand how important it is to protect and nurture our children," said Papaian. "The organization brings together a remarkable group of people committed to the care of Indian Country's next generations so we were very pleased to support NICWA. Working together gives all of us a stronger capacity to make a difference in the lives of the people and communities we care about."

SOURCE National Indian Child Welfare Association