The walk has been walked, the chili consumed and the funds (mostly) counted. We want to thank everyone involved for a fantastic Coldest Night of the Year this year.
Thankfully, the event didn’t entirely live up to its name. The day before wind chills had been below -30, so it came as a welcome news that the walk would occur during a bit of a thaw. Temperatures in Belleville came in around -5. Still cold enough to remind participants why we’re doing the walk, but not so cold as to cause undo risk to the walkers.
On the fundraising side, the event was a success for nightlight. We were Coldest Night’s designated partner charity in both Kingston and Belleville. Each had set a goal of $25,000 raised. Bear in mind that the figures we’re quoting below are preliminary totals, and that more money will likely drift in over the upcoming weeks.
Despite only being in its second year, the walk in Belleville came close to it’s goal, collecting about $20,000, about a 50% increase over last year. We raised 80% of our goal, despite only having about 1/3 of our target number of walkers. This means each of our walkers raised 2 1/2 times what each walker is anticipated to raise. That’s certainly a praise worthy contribution!
Kingston, in its third year, raised about $33,000, increasing their totals over last year by about 50%, and substantially exceeding the $25,000 goal. We’d like to give out a huge thank you to our many walkers and donors who helped make those numbers possible.
We’d also like to thank our army of volunteers. Route marshalls, registrars, food servers, greeters and more are necessary to putting on a safe and fun event and our volunteers delivered the goods. You can all be immensely proud of the work you did.
Looking forward to next year, we hope to build on the success of this year. As the event increases in visibility, people come to a greater realization of the importance of cause.
We’d also like to take a moment to extend a quick shout out to all the businesses and organizations who sponsored the event:
Belleville
Dr. William Hern Dentistry
Centre for Family Preservation & Wellness
SIM Canada
UCB Canada
Kingston
Server Cloud Canada
iStorm New Media
Kingston & the Island Federal Liberal Association
Bay Park Baptist Church
Sarah MacInnis Century 21
K-ROCK 105.7
Country 93.5
KISS 102.7 FM