Our goal this year for the Calgary Herald Christmas Fund was to raise 1 million dollars. Through the generous donations of Calgarians we actually raised 1.2 million dollars. AMAZING!
Today we had our closing celebration...all of the 14 charities were present, plus the charity selection committee, the Herald employees and those of us at the Herald that specifically worked on this project alone. There were introductions of all of the charities, a slide show and a video presentation etc. Malcolm Kirk, the Calgary Herald Publisher, was making his speech and getting ready to hand out the cheques to all of the charities and he started telling this story about how he got a phone call late one evening from a local oilman (who wishes to remain anonymous) and how moved he was by the work we were doing at the Herald for all of these charities...well the man told Malcolm that he wanted TO MATCH what we had already raised!!! WOW!!!
So we doubled our goal and made 2.4 million dollars for our 14 local charities!!!
The whole room went crazy, the charities were crying, the staff were stunned, people were whooping...it was insane! I was so floored - I couldn't help but cry myself...it was so emotional. The charities had no idea that there we going to get so much money...they were so thankful and it was so hard not to keep it together knowing what a difference this would make to their respective charity work in the Calgary area.
I was so proud to be a part of this project. It really is such a great cause and one that really deserves the attention and funds that it has. I can't wait to do it all over again next year!
So THANK YOU to those that donated...YOU are making a difference!
For those interested you can find more information/articles/photos here:
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/features/christmasfund/index.html
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