PERTH TELETHON weekend

Fat Cat hugs one of the kids

For the non-Australians and for the non-Perth residents, Telethon is a yearly event that takes up a whole weekend on Channel 7 TV station, who is a major sponsor, and is broadcast from the Perth Convention Centre. 

It´s an event dedicated to raising funds to help improve the lives of children throughout Western Australia, by supporting research into children´s diseases, supporting children´s hospitals and other charitable organisations.

It was first started in 1968, and it has to date raised over $103 million.

Throughout the year the fundraising team have various projects to raise money, such as The Lexus Ball, Telethon Christmas sizzle, selling Fat Cat dolls at the Friendlies chemists, Viva kids photo album, Monopoly and Bingo games at Burswood Entertainment complex, etc.

Apart from this, a lot of West Australian companies support the charity, such as building companies and their suppliers who build two houses, one in Perth and another in a country town, to be auctioned on the weekend, and all the money raised goes to the Telethon charities.

Other big sponsors are the Sunday Times Newspaper group with their call centre and information technology department.

This is a fun weekend on TV, with a lot of high profile personalities, singers, dancers, actors, offering their services by manning the phones and performing for the huge audiences both on the local and via the tv broadcasts.
This year TV stars from the series "Home and Away", "Packed to the Rafters" and "Winners and Losers" will be making an appearance, plus some impressive musical acts such as: The Ten Tenors, Deff Leppard,
Shannon Noll (Australian Idol winner 2003) , Jack Vidgen (Australia has Got Talent 2011 winner), Mark Vincent (Australia has Got Talent 2009 winner), Stan Walker (Australian Idol 2009 winner) and Emmanuel Kelly, a favourite, but now eliminated contestant of Australian X-Factor 2011).
Many radio and TV personalities will also be participating.
The TV coverage starts on Channel 7, on Saturday 15th at 6,30pm and ends on Sunday 16th at 8,30pm.
Donations can be made via phone on 1300 737 507.
Australians are a very generous nation, so I´m sure that once again Telethon will be a big success.

Will you be watching Telethon and who are your favourite stars appearing this weekend?

On my mind is a Friday link-up photo feature linking from Rhonda at Down to Earth.

Sunday 16th - PS:  Just to let you all know, the Perth Telethon weekend raised the sum of $13,473,159.00.
This was the most amount ever raised, and this was raised in West Australia alone.