It was another weekend for miracles in Saskatchewan because the Kinsmen and Kinettes said so and when they speak, the province listens and gives. This time it was to the tune of $4.6 million or a touch more.
The 35th annual Telemiracle, the 20-hour television marathon that raises cash for the Kinsmen Foundation that, in turn, takes care of Saskatchewan's people in need, was a resounding success. The $4.6 million represented the second highest total ever.
This year's event was staged at TCU Place in Saskatoon and a total of 17 local Kinsmen and Kinettes, plus one guest volunteer, found their way to the nerve centre and all the action where celebrity performers from across North America and talented people from all across the province gathered to pool these talents while the Kinsmen and Kinettes pooled the cash, cheques and credit card donations that came rolling in.
Melanie Tribiger, vice-president of the Estevan Kinette club, made her seventh trip to the provincial fund-raising event and was once again totally impressed with the activity and the end results.
"We got there on Saturday. A lot of us answered phones, some were messengers and some provided security. Two from our club organized the kids who were doing the tote board work, so we spread ourselves around pretty well," she said.
Several members of the local club are long-time volunteers at Telemiracle, being drawn back year-after-year due to its magnetic appeal of generosity.
"We completed our club pledge while we were there and fortunately for us, we delayed making the donation and managed to do it during the one-hour time span on Sunday when PotashCorp matched donations. So our $2,500 club donation was boosted to $5,000 thanks to them," she said.
The $2,500 was raised through a special steak night and silent auction the club held a couple of weeks ago.
"That's money over and above the thousands that are raised locally through the sale of the helping hands cards throughout the city," Tribiger said.
There were some special moments too.
"We brought a girl along with us this year. She's a new Kinette member and this was her first Telemiracle as a volunteer. She told us she wanted to become involved because of Telemiracle. It seems the foundation had helped her family, her brother-in-law, a few years ago, so her family had been on the receiving end and she wanted to help give something back. So we saw a little bit of this year's event through her eyes. Her brother-in-law has since passed away and she's determined to be involved because she saw how much it can help," said Tribiger.
"We also heard from a seven-year-old boy who had been a recipient in the past and he had saved up money this year so he could go to Telemiracle and watch, but he was called for his surgery just before Telemiracle so he couldn't make it. He contacted us from the hospital and donated the money he had saved for his trip to Saskatoon, so here was another recipient who was giving back. It was another emotional moment for all of us too," Tribiger added.
On a personal front, Tribiger said her own three-year-old nephew got into the spirit of the event by opening up his piggy bank and donating the money in it, "plus any other money he could scrounge out around the house," she said with a laugh. By the time he was finished, he had dug up about $135 that went into the foundation.
"And you know, that one hour when PotashCorp matched any donations made, well, we have 40 phones up there on the stage plus 40 more downstairs for overflow calls and another 20 reserved for credit card calls only and they were all busy. In fact I was on the last line of phones in the overflow room at the time and I took over 20 calls in the first half-hour alone. Some people said they had tried 10 or more times to get through in that hour, before they succeeded. In the seven years I've been going there, I've never seen so much telephone action. Saskatchewan really came to life during that one hour, more so than ever," Tribiger said.
As has become a tradition now, this year's event also saw some generous legacy donations made with a number of people bequeathing significant sums to Telemiracle and this year was no exception.
"The amounts matter, but then they don't matter in some respect because it's what we can do with the money that matters the most of all," said Tribiger.
The dialysis ward at St. Joseph's Hospital was the recipient of some of the Telemiracle money a few years ago when the Kinsmen and Kinettes provided nearly $250,000 for the purchase of all the dialysis machines used in what was then the newly opened unit.
