Despite things looking drastically different this year, the Children’s Treatment Centre of Chatham-Kent Foundation will still be getting a major funding boost with its 2020 Festival of Giving event.
Normally an in-person function, organizers were determined to not let the COVID-19 pandemic hamper the fundraising event and instead hosted it virtually on Saturday night.
The event proved to still be a success, with over $177,000 raised.
Children’s Treatment Centre Foundation President Mike Genge said the 19th annual Festival of Giving was definitely a unique experience. Organizers kept people watching with live auctions and live music.
Genge said the team worked throughout the summer on the live auction, which was done using an online auction program.
"That went live last Saturday and it was hilarious on [Saturday]...the last five minutes of bidding, people were going crazy," said Genge. "I think we ended up bringing in an extra $7,000 in the last 20 minutes of people just furiously bidding and trying to get their bids in to get their items."
The night was capped off with a draw for a new 2020 Mazda3 GX1. In addition to the auctions and on-screen entertainment, Genge said they also got video cameos to play throughout the event from some well-known faces including Carole Baskin of Netflix's Tiger King, Gary Bussey and Tom Arnold.
Guests watched the event from the comfort of their homes, and Genge said many of them hosted watch parties with people in their households.
"They were loving it because they didn't know what to expect," he said. "I had a few people say to me 'oh Mike, this is going to be kind of boring.' Then when they got into it, they saw our production value, they saw the cameos and they saw all the different things that were going on, they were absolutely blown away."
Genge said the foundation was able to raise slightly less than what would have been raised during a typical year but, he's still considering it a big win.
"Normally we'd raise about $225,000 - $250,000. So, we're down, we're definitely down. But keep in mind, we had half the amount of online auction items that we would normally have in the Bradley Centre and we had half the amount of live auction items. So, we on average did better per item online and in live bidding. It worked out really well...at the end of the day, I'm really, really happy with the number," said Genge. "Anytime you can raise over $175,000 in one evening, and that's your net, I think that's absolutely an incredible evening."
The money will go towards three core Children’s Treatment Centre programs that aren't funded by the government including the recreation program, music program and the social work program.
You can watch the 2020 Festival of Giving by visiting the Children's Treatment Centre and Foundation of Chatham-Kent Facebook page.
