Telemiracle 49 wrapped up in Saskatoon over the weekend, enjoying support from across the province including the southeast.
In total that raised $5,709,306, running for 20 straight hours from 9 p.m. Saturday to 5 p.m. Sunday and just running shy of beating Telemiracle 48's total.
The $12,037 raised for Estevan had some good assistance, says Kinettes Telemiracle Rep Krissy Wallman.
"We raised just over $12,000 through a few different outlets, we had our annual auction where we raised just over $8,900, and then we had coin boxes at the Fired Up Grill and had helping hands as well at A&W. We got donations from Fired Up Grill, their staff donated a portion of their tips from the Valentine's Supper, and then we also got from the Faris family, where there are two children and their grandma set up a table for a lemonade and bake sale."
The Kinettes also brought out a new challenge with people getting the opportunity to pie some locals in exchange for raising money.
"Our last thing we had a challenge between Nokomis, that's my hometown. My mom is the Telemiracle rep there. So this is our third challenge with Nokomis and it was a pie in the face challenge where we got five community members each, in both Nokomis and Estevan."
"Here we got the mayor, Tony Sernick, the ECS principal James Jones, lifetime Kinsman Dave Elliott, and our two Kinette ladies. We have Raelene Fieber and Susan Colbow. They volunteered to potentially get pied in the face," said Wallman. "With this, we had a two-week personal donation blitz and people donated money, and they're able to cast a vote. So the more money they donated, the more votes they are able to cast and then the top two highest votes, those two people are going to get pied in the face."
Wallman says people can tune in to see who gets pied tonight.
"Then between the challenge between the Nokomis and Estevan, whoever raised the most money, the opposing TeleMiracle rep is also going to get an additional pie. So tonight at 7:00 p.m., we're going to be live streaming the Estevan community challenge before our meeting. So we're gonna have all five of them come out and see who's gonna get pied tonight."
Overall, the donations showed that Estevan had a good year for raising money, with plans already in production for next year's Telemiracle.
"That's pretty similar to other years. We always like to try something different. So the pie in the face challenge was something different to do this year and we're gearing up already for next year with the big 50th. So we're hoping to do a few different things next year."
Wallman thanked everyone in Estevan who helped donate to raise money for the Telemiracle.