Saint John High School students unveil their donation of $1,500 to the Empty Stocking fund in 2019. (Empty Stocking Fund/Facebook)
Saint John’s Empty Stocking Fund had a record-breaking Telethon this past weekend, raising over $200-thousand dollars for children in need.
Coordinator Patti Blake says at first, she was worried families wouldn’t apply in time, but they managed to get a record-breaking number of children this year too.
“We had 2,300 (children) last year and 2,300 roughly the year before. The numbers kept jumping and jumping and now we have 2,532 children,” she said.
During the 107th Telethon, Saint Johners raised $205,807.61 in just eight hours. Last year, Blake says they were just shy of $184,000.
Oh wow! Our grand total this year surpassed last years by a lot! Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity…
Posted by Empty Stocking Fund – Saint John on Saturday, November 23, 2019
Blake says they also received some very large donations this year compared to last year.
“Usually we would have $5 in memory of a family pet or something, and it was not uncommon to see $50, $50, $50. So people were very, very generous,” she said.
Blake says this year’s Telethon show was very entertaining, with a new host and performances from youth in the city.
“We had a new host — Scott Thomas — and he was quite entertaining, and the children always come through. So we had some really great choirs and individual performers, so I think that really helped us,” she said.
Despite the higher numbers this year, Blake says the gift card amounts may decrease from $100 per child to $80.
“We place our order today for Toys R Us and hopefully we get the gift cards next week. I’ll be working with the churches and social workers across the city to distribute the gift cards,” she said.
She says they’re hoping to find an additional $50,000 to top up the fund.
Blake says she hopes to see record-breaking numbers next year too, and urges participating businesses and organizations to start fundraising as early as possible.
“I would absolutely like to break those numbers again next year because there are so many children in need. We absolute need more than $205,000 to ensure that everybody has a successful and joyful Christmas morning,” she said.
