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Adell's School of Dance donates during the telethon on Saturday. The school also performed, prior to donating to the cause. (Photo by Larry Austin)
Adell's School of Dance donates during the telethon on Saturday. The school also performed, prior to donating to the cause. (Photo by Larry Austin)

Niagara Falls Firefighter Toy Telethon another success

Fri, Dec 8th 2017 03:55 pm
Yearly fundraising total currently more than $70,000
By David Yarger
Tribune Editor
On Saturday, the Niagara Falls Fire Department held its annual telethon aired on public access channel OSC-21. The telethon ran from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at Niagara Falls High School, between the main set in the performing arts center and the cafeteria, where there was a basket auction and various donations.
For over 85 years now, the fire department's Christmas toy fund has worked to receive donations from the area to try and help over 1,000 children and families in need have a Christmas to remember.
John Castellani, telethon chairman, later told The Sentinel, "We counted monies collected in front of local businesses on the day of the telethon, proceeds from walk-in donations, donations from local dance studios that performed at the telethon, donations from our firefighter and child logos at Niagara Falls Schools, proceeds from the basket auction that we had going on at NFHS the day of the telethon, as well as what we were able to take in from our bar brigade, charity run, letter writing campaign, grants from Walmart foundation and part of what we took in during our Black Friday boot brigade.
"The total from all that was $70,060 when we went off the air at 10 p.m. Since then, we deposited another $6,000 we were able to finish counting from Black Friday. We still have the rest of our logo sale monies to receive from local establishments, and store collection monies from Sunday, so we are very hopeful that our end-of-year total will be at or above last year's $80,000."
Firefighters sit at the main set during the telethon on Saturday. Citizens were able to call in donations that were announced by the firefighters on OSC-21 TV. (Photo by David Yarger)

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