The annual Festival of Giving event is being deemed a success, after $307,600 was raised for local charities.
Hundreds of people flocked to the John D. Bradley Convention Centre for the “Blame It On Rio” themed event on Saturday, April 12, which featured Brazilian carnival style entertainment, music, and a LIVE and silent auction.
Art Stirling, executive director for the Children’s Treatment Centre Foundation of Chatham-Kent, said this is the fourth year in a row they have eclipsed the $300,000 mark.
“In fact this was our 13th Festival of Giving and over the course of the 13 years, we’ve now raised almost $2.3 million for charities across Chatham-Kent,” he said. “It’s a great team effort and a lot of charities benefit from it. We’re just so pleased that the community continues to support us so strongly.”
Stirling said the event has between 300 and 400 volunteers that help is some capacity.
He said the planning does’t happen overnight.
“We start the preliminary planning in November, right after New Year’s the committee hits the ground running as far as the logistics, we get the tickets sold, we’re touching base with all of our sponsors,” he said. “It’s quite a flurry of activity right up until the event. It’s a huge undertaking, it’s an absolutely insane amount of work but when the result is rewarded the way it is and it all comes together, it’s a real natural high. The event is exciting.”
The funds that are raised are divided up among a variety of different organizations and charities across C-K, including every food bank within Chatham-Kent and the title recipient the Children’s Treatment Centre Foundation of Chatham-Kent.
