The Children's Treatment Centre Foundation of Chatham-Kent has a new platform in order to host virtual fundraisers.
The CTC Foundation recently launched its own website, separate from the Children's Treatment Centre.
Mike Genge, executive director of the CTC Foundation, said sharing a website with the centre meant that some posts were sometimes "lost". Now having its own website, the CTC Foundation has its own website to host some upcoming virtual events.
"I think the pandemic sort of forced our hand because we needed to have a separate website in order to do the bidding platform," said Genge. "All of our auction items that we normally would have -- that were close to almost 500 -- we're looking at building a bidding website as well as doing a live auction the night of the virtual [Festival of Giving]."
The annual FOG event was postponed from April 18 to October 17 due to concerns surrounding COVID-19.
"We're going to put together a package and what people are going to do is come by and pick it up. They'll go home, they'll get food, [the package] will have lots of party favours in it," he said. "We'll have a couple of bands playing and we'll do our live auction as well."
Genge said over 800 FOG tickets were sold so the foundation is hopeful that people will be just as interested in participating in the virtual event.
"During this time period when we can't actively fundraise, doing a virtual event will mean a lot for our kids and our program," he said.
Genge said they're still working out some details for the virtual event, adding it won't go late into the night as per usual.
"We like to be leaders when it comes to fundraising so I think what we're doing right now is something fun and something different for the community," said Genge.
As to whether or not the virtual fundraiser will be opened to allow for more participants, Genge said they should find that out in a few weeks.
-With files from Matt Weverink
