|
The WHAS Crusade for Children is an annual telethon broadcast by WHAS-TV and WHAS (AM) Radio in Louisville, Kentucky. The telethon benefits a wide range of children's charities throughout Kentucky and southern Indiana. The Crusade was begun in 1954, in large part through the efforts of Barry Bingham, Sr., the patriarch of the family that owned the stations and ''The Courier-Journal'' newspaper together (WHAS-TV is currently under the ownership of Sander Media, and is run under a shared services agreement by the Gannett Company, which also owns the ''Courier-Journal'', while WHAS Radio is now owned by iHeartMedia). The first telethon was telecast from the Memorial Auditorium, and featured actor Pat O'Brien as the celebrity guest. Contributions on the first telethon totaled more than $156,000. The 2014 telethon, the 61st of the series, raised $5,637.680 as the broadcast went off the air Sunday evening. This was a drop from the 2013 edition, which raised $6,001,342; the drop was expected by Crusade officials, as they had made a special effort in 2013 to top $6 million for the 60th anniversary.〔 The total did not include bequests, which go into a special endowment set up in 2004, which is used to pay the expenses of the Crusade organization so that 100 percent of all monies collected by the public go directly to children's special needs. It is the highest "tote board total" since bequests were counted separately for the endowment, starting in 2004. The record tote board total for the Crusade, not including bequests, is $6. million (2004, the 50th edition). Since its founding, the Crusade has raised more than $160 million for local children's special needs.〔 The Crusade has become a major local institution. For months before the telethon broadcast each June, grass-roots collection efforts are held throughout the area — from "pickle jars" at restaurants, to bingo games, to benefit concerts and hundreds of similar events. In the early days of television, local telethons were quite common. In recent years, most local telethons have given way to well-produced national telethons such as the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, but many of those have since fallen by the wayside while the Crusade rolls on. The Crusade for Children may be an anachronism, but a hugely successful one. It is by far the most successful local telethon in America, by almost any measure, though its outreach has grown well past the Louisville metro area. It is second in longevity only to a local telethon in Green Bay, Wisconsin on WBAY-TV that benefits those with cerebral palsy; that telethon was first produced in March 1954, seven months before the first Crusade for Children. The Crusade broadcast is normally held on the first weekend of June each year, beginning on Saturday afternoon and ending sometime on Sunday night (occasionally even into the wee hours of Monday). In 2014, the Crusade broadcast dates were June 7–8. ==The firefighters== The backbone of the collection efforts, and the signature of the Crusade itself, are the dozens of local fire departments who collect millions of dollars each year. Most of those donations come at road blocks set up at hundreds of intersections throughout the region, where firefighters ask motorists to put donations in boots. On a Saturday or Sunday in late spring, it's not uncommon for someone driving across metro Louisville to encounter multiple road blocks manned by volunteers. During the telethon, each fire department brings in those donations, dumping them out of the boots and into "fishbowls" (aquarium-like containers) before the cameras. Before the "dump," a representative from each department usually reads a list of significant contributors, businesses who helped the department during fund-raising efforts, and numerous others who helped in any way — a process that is time-consuming and boring to many outsiders, but an endearing tradition of the Crusade that locals look forward to. Crusade organizers have tried to streamline this process of the years, with mixed results. In the past, the fire departments brought the collections directly to the television studio, parading their trucks down the street outside with sirens blaring. But the number of participating departments has become so large that in recent years, broadcast crews have set up remote locations in outlying communities such as Elizabethtown, Corydon and elsewhere. (This also keeps the firefighters from having to bring their trucks all the way to Louisville, and closer to home in case they're needed to fight a fire.) The increase in fire department donations has forced the Crusade to broadcast a pre-telethon show, featuring the departmental reports and remotes from across the area. In 2007, Crusade organizers simply moved the official start of the broadcast to 1:30 p.m. local time, with a one-hour break for local and ''World News Tonight'' newscasts at 6:00 p.m. The 2008 Crusade followed a similar schedule, except for a two-hour break Saturday afternoon for the ABC broadcast of the 2008 Belmont Stakes; the telethon broadcast its final total during halftime of Sunday night's ABC broadcast of Game 2 of the 2008 NBA Finals. In 2011 the Crusade ended at 6:30 p.m., in order to clear the 2011 NBA Finals, the earliest on-air finish in many years. Departments compete each year to win the Jim Walton Trophy, given to departments that record the largest percentage increase in donations from the previous year. The trophy is named for Jim Walton, a WHAS-TV personality who was the Crusade's master of ceremonies for 26 years, and was its first executive director. Fire department collections typically account for more than half of the Crusade's final total each year. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「WHAS Crusade for Children」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|