The second annual Housing on the Tube telethon, broadcast for the past three days from the Ag Hall raised a record-breaking, inspiring one million plus very badly needed dollars for Island Affordable Housing. IAHF Director Pat Manning was impressed with the number of volunteers, pledge-promoting contributions, and unsolicited phone-in pledges this year. And, of course, he and his staff and board were absolutely thrilled with the generosity of the island community - both year-rounders and summer visitors, who helped them exceed their expectations for the island's only telethon in its sophomore year.
The telethon commenced on Friday morning, and got off to a promising start with the help of guests Trip Barnes, Marty Nadler, Sissy Biggers and Plum's Tina Miller. For the first time this year, folks stopped by to offer goods, services, concert tickets and other items as incentives to call-in pledges.
A dressed-to -impress crowd packed the house on Saturday night, as the Premiere Party kicked off - with the tally up to the halfway mark for the goal of raising $550,000. The theme was "A Night in South Beach (Miami, not Katama!)Miami" this year, and the rustic Ag Hall was transformed - thanks to lots of white, lights and hurricane globes - into a spacious modern South Beach lounge for the evening. Gourmet themed food stations kept the crowd moving and mingling while Jim Belushi got everyone boogying with lots of audience participation and joyous hand raising as "Shout" brought down the house.
Pat Manning thanked everyone involved and made the announcement that Kenn Karakul and Suzanne Lanzone, who have been instrumental in the IAHF's innovative and highly successful fund-raisers for the last few years, will be stepping down this year to let other board members spearhead future fundraising efforts.
The excitement was bumped up on Sunday when, in the final hour, Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck and his wife Corinne donated two tickets behind the Celtics bench for the next $5000 pledge. Appropriately, Patrick and Marcia Ahearn, who were among the top three contributors last year, and who were planning to call in a final pledge at that time, got the tickets and the final tally-raising pledge of the weekend. The Ahearns donated a total of $15,000 throughout the weekend.
During the last hour, an anonymous donor, who was impressed with how the community was responding to the call for action, made a very generous donation of $350,000 to bring the total over the million dollar mark. Thank you, thank you, thank you Anonymous Donor.
This Wednesday at midnight, the Island Affordable Housing Fund will announce a very special opportunity - in a last push to raise more of the necessary $5 million needed to continue with their many exciting projects - some in development, some upcoming and some in the proposal phase. Stay tuned. We'll let you know about this exciting offer on Thursday morning after the midnight Wednesday announcement.
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