Saturday's Inspiration Telethon was a surpassing success: they managed to raise over a million dollars in a day! Coming unto the end of the event after 6:00 pm - the total raised was hovering at around eight hundred thousand dollars - which is still mighty impressive.
That's when Minister of Poverty alleviation Anthony Boots Martinez stepped in with the biggest single donation of the day. Here's the rather breathless moment that pushed the telethon over the threshold:
Hon. Boots Martinez
"We have chartered through a program through OPEC to find a way to donate to this cause $250,000.00 which is quarter of a million dollars."
Rene Villanueva Sr.
"Oh yea, yea, yea."
Hon. Boots Martinez
"That will be done in the next month, so that push it over the million dollars."
Rene Villanueva Sr.
"Wow, that push it over the million dollars."
Kim Simplis-Barrow - Special Envoy for Women and Children
"That brings us to $1,093,368.66."
Rene Villanueva Sr.
"Kim, you did great girl, I am proud of you."
Kim Simplis-Barrow
"I was deeply moved by especially the children who came who broke their piggy banks, who gave their monies from their tooth fairies to this inspiration center. I think those are the moments that will forever be etched in my mind and my heart and the Belizeans."
Approval will be sought from the OPEC Fund for International Development to transfer the funds through the Southside Poverty Alleviation Project - the center will be on the Southside in the Lake Independence area.
The largest donations came courtesy of the Belize Social Security Board, which pledged $150,000 to the Inspiration Center to be paid over three years; Belize Telemedia Limited committed to $60,000, while Fyffes and Belize Sugar Industries donated $50,000 each. And so again the total is one million and ninety three thousand dollars - add that to the four hundred thousand Belize dollars already donated by the Taiwanese - and other previous monies raised - and the center has already raised 1.6 million dollars - which means it is halfway home - as it will cost three million dollars.
The telethon is planned to be an annual event.
