The 18th annual Festival of Giving (FoG) fundraiser will take place Saturday, April 13 at the John D. Bradley Convention Centre in Chatham. The theme this year is "Wide World of Sports."
Ron MacLean from Hockey Night in Canada made the announcement before Christmas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzIOGuCR_jA
The money raised will be used to help build a new facility for the Children's Treatment Centre of Chatham-Kent.
"It's going towards our Butterfly Building Campaign, which we're still raising funds for," said Fund Development Officer Lisa Caron. "It will help the children within the community have a bigger place for more treatment and more services that we can provide to them."
Executive Director Mike Genge said they've raised a lot of money over 17 years.
"We've raised over $4.7 million, it's absolutely incredible. And all the money has been going to the Children's Treatment Centre, but also our partner charities. Habitat for Humanity, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Sertoma Club, other organizations."
Genge added that it's important to support other charities.
"We had the money spread out all over Southwestern Ontario. We had Cancer Society, we had Ronald McDonald House, we had all these other great partner charities. It's a great event, we got great turnout, tickets will go really fast."
Last year's event raised $265,000.
Tickets go on sale to the public on Monday, January 14th at 10 am. Tickets can be purchased online at cktickets.com.