The MooseFM Radiothon, benefitting the Haliburton Highlands Health Services Foundation, has raised $537,000 for mammography services.
Listeners called in all day Aug. 15 and 16 with donations to help the Haliburton hospital get a mammography unit for breast cancer screening.
Long-time Eagle Lake resident, Richard Muir, said he would match donations up to $100,000.
On Aug. 16, executive director of the foundation, Melanie Klodt Wong, announced he had doubled his matching efforts to up to $200,000.
Kim Emmerson, of Emmerson Lumber, was interviewed about the importance of healthcare and made a contribution of $25,000. Less than an hour before the closing of the broadcast, the Radiothon was still $22,000 short of $167,000 in pledges – the amount needed to take donations over $500,000 with the double match by Muir.
Scott and Chere Campbell, of Haliburton, also matched up to $500,000.
Klodt Wong said, “it’s a great fundraiser, but this year was just exponentially better and bigger and more impactful with the double match, and focusing on mammography, and we did more advertising.”
About 15 minutes before the end, Tammy and Tran LaRue of Radiothon sponsor Minden Subaru made a $25,000 donation, which took the campaign over the half-amillion-dollar mark – along with the other donations that had been coming in by phone in the last 45 minutes. The final amount raised was $179,093. Following Muir’s and the Campbells’ matching donations the foundation received $537,279.
The mammography unit is expected to arrive and be operational by the end of this year. The foundation thanked everyone who contributed to Radiothon, to the matching donators, sponsors and businesses that chipped in.
