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Funding brighter futures
In just six hours, fundraisers met and exceeded their goal and raised $500,011 for the BC Children’s Hospital foundation on Sunday.
Through A World of Smiles Telethon, Shaw Cable partnered with producer Atish Ram for the 10th anniversary of what has become a remarkable community effort.
“I still haven’t come down from cloud nine,” said Ram, who produces the magazine TV show, Zindagi, on Shaw’s Multicultural channel.
Funds raised from the event will benefit BC Children’s Hospital, Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children and the Child & Family Research Institute supporting ongoing research, equipment acquisitions and clinical care needs.
Ram was overwhelmed by the level of support shown by the local community, especially by Rana Vig, the publisher of Mehfil magazine, who has been volunteering at the telethon for three years. This year Vig acted as chair of the fund raising committee for the entire South Asian committee.
“You really can’t understand the situation until you walk through the hospital,” Vig said. “We’re so used to getting statistics . . . but when I was there, I saw a baby that was barely under a pound—no more the size of my cell phone. I could literally fit it into my pocket.”
Vig said he knew what he had to do when he told the baby’s mother about the telethon and her eyes filled up with tears and she was so thankful.
“Let’s just say when I walked out of there, my eyes were pretty clean,” he said. Ram agreed to produce the telethon in 1998 when Shaw Cable approached him with the idea. He said he didn’t think twice.
The first telethon raised $60,000 and every year the project has simply snowballed. This year the goal was ambitiously set at $500,000, which was met and matched with just $11 more than was ever hoped for.
“Our friends at Shaw and our supporters in the South Asian community have shown once again how much they care for B.C.’s kids,” said Sue Carruthers, president and CEO of BC Children’s Hospital Foundation. “We have been hosting this event for a decade now, and the level of success grows with each passing year.”
The funds raised through the telethon will be presented at the 21st Annual BC Children’s Hospital Miracle Weekend taking place May 31 and June 1 on Global Television.
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