School district telethons raise more than $200K for charities

Telethons at three Pittsburgh-area school districts raised more than $200,000 for charities this Christmas season.

Make-A-Wish was the beneficiary of Plum School District’s long-running telethon and a newer one organized by Penn-Trafford. Penn-Trafford raised about $67,400, while Plum collected about $53,700, according to their teacher organizers.

Fox Chapel raised $90,228 for Backpack for Hunger, a local volunteer organization that provides weekend food for students in the district.

Granting a wish to a critically ill child costs $5,000, said Rick Berrott, a television production teacher at Plum High School. With Plum and Penn-Trafford raising a combined total of about $121,100, that’s enough to grant 24 wishes.

Fundraising efforts at Plum’s schools raised about $36,500 before the Dec. 20 telethon, nearly reaching this year’s goal of $40,000 before donations over the course of the nine-hour telethon were added.

“Usually I say, if we don’t hit it, we don’t hit it. It’s always nice to hit $40,000. This year, we blew right past it,” Berrott said.

Going into the telethon, almost $11,500 had been raised at the high school, Berrott said. Among the district’s other schools, Holiday Park Intermediate stood out with almost $11,000 — Berrott said the school consistently raises more than $10,000 every year, primarily through a jog-a-thon.

The telethon had more than 90 guests.

“It was a good show. The kids came in at 5 in the morning. We were on air live at 6:45 and finished just after 3:45 p.m.,” Berrott said. “The kids did a great job working the camera and being the floor directors.”

Plum will hold its 25th telethon for Make-A-Wish next year. For the anniversary, Berrott said they are aiming to reach a lifetime tally of $1.25 million.

“We’ll enjoy this one now,” he said. “We’ll worry about next year, next year.”

This year marked Penn-Trafford’s seventh telethon for Make-A-Wish. Steve Vinton’s television production students planned and ran it on Dec. 19.

“It’s a compilation of all the efforts all across the district, all the fundraisers we do,” Vinton said.

It started as a learning experience for his students.

“I wanted to do something as a culminating project every year for my students,” he said. “They run everything. It’s written, directed and produced by the students.”

Nearly all of Penn-Trafford’s tally was raised before the telethon. The biggest chunk comes from a middle school dodgeball tournament in the late spring that brought in more than $20,000, Vinton said.

“It’s nice to know that the money that we raise is helping people here locally,” he said.

This year marked Fox Chapel’s 35th annual telethon, which has raised a total of about $1.3 million for various local and regional charities.

The district’s Dec. 20 telethon involved students from all six schools in the district. Student, teacher, parent and community representatives participated by making donations during the event.

Backpack for Hunger provides children with food over weekends with bags of food sent home with them on Fridays. The group also provides food bags to district children during the summer.

Since beginning in 2015, the group has distributed more than 85,000 bags of food.