Sixty-one million dollars. That's the amount of money raised during this year's Jerry Lewis Telethon to fight Muscular Dystrophy. The influx of money to the annual telethon, which is held during the Labor Day holiday, was bolstered by a huge donation from a group of firefighters and the lack of a major hurricane so far this season.
This broke the previous record of $60.5 million, which was set back in 2003. The telethon was able to surpass this amount with a $23.5 million dollar contribution from the International Association of Firefighters. Last year only $55 million was raised due to the devastation hurricane Katrina wrought on the Gulf Coast shortly before Labor Day. Bob Mackle, Muscular Dystrophy Association spokesman, expressed great relief that there weren't any storms this season.
The telethon, which moved back to Las Vegas this year after eleven years in Los Angeles, was carried on nearly 200 stations across the United States and Canada. It has raised $1.4 billion dollars since 1966 to fight MD. Despite recent health problems, Lewis still presides over at least part of the 21-hour program each year.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-05-2006 @ 12:05PM
dhamon said...
I believe that the donations from the firefighters are not included in the toteboard total. Those are from individual donations.
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9-07-2006 @ 5:55PM
Jim said...
I concur. The $61,000,000 is soley derived from phone in contributions, not those given by large organizations and/or corporations. The $61,000,000 represents those monies from the average household in America.
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