The hangovers have now faded, blisters are healing, and that sweaty heap of clothes you left piled in a corner of your bedroom have (probably) been picked up and put in the wash by now… but the memories will remain forever.
Another HoHoTO has come and gone. Another extraordinary outpouring of love and community spirit - achieving the seemingly impossible through sheer force of collective goodwill.
Thank you, Toronto.
Thank you to our generous sponsors - without whom HoHoTO would never happen. Both our cash sponsors and the many in-kind and gift sponsors who fuel our raffle and lubricate our logistics in other ways.
Thank you to the staff and management of The Mod Club, for once again donating their space and their time for the cause.
And most of all, thank you to you - the more than 700 of you who bought tickets, made donations, brought food, and partied the night away with us. Thank you.
When we first set out on this remarkable voyage, over a year ago, we thought we might be able to raise a few thousand bucks. Later, we set ourselves what we thought was an ambitious goal of $10,000. How little we understood the power of the people back then. As was widely reported, the first HoHoTO in December 2008 raised north of $25,000 for the Daily Bread Food Bank. Our spin-off summer event, HoHOTo, pulled in more than $13,000.
This is just astonishing to us - that so many of our friends in the Toronto geek, media, marketing and creative community are willing to dig so deep to help their fellow Torontonians. You’re an incredible bunch of individuals. What we’ve achieved together is jaw-dropping, really, when you stop to think about it.
On November 12th this year, one member of the happy band of misfit toys that organizes HoHoTO sent around an email message to the group with a one word subject line:
“Ahem”
…and the game was afoot once more.
This year, we set a stretch target. Let’s take the two previous events combined and try to beat that number, we thought. $40,000 became the goal. Forty thousand dollars to help feed hungry Toronotonians this Holiday season. Could we possibly raise $40K - in one night?
We must be insane.
Well, ladies and gentlemen of HoHoTO, we did it. Oh wow, did we ever do it!
On the night, we presented a cheque for $48,424.50 to the Daily Bread Food Bank and collected 1,000 lbs of food at the door. With top up donations since then, we’re tantalisingly close to a full $50,000 raised in one night.
Words fail me. Really. Our minds are just utterly blown by this.
And there’s more to come. Stay tuned for news of a quick follow-up auction of some extra goodies in the next couple of days. Some hot prizes were left unclaimed at the end of the night, so we’re going to put them up for auction on Twitter to help tip us over that magic $50K threshold. There’s fantastic wine, Raptors tickets, all kinds of treats and treasures to bid on. More news on that later today.
For now, thank you all again. This is a critical time for the folk at Daily Bread. On average, more than 80,000 people in the GTA rely on food banks every month. This year again, there has been an alarming increase in food bank use over the past year, up something like 14 per cent in Toronto (18 per cent nationally).
With every dollar we collected through ticket sales, the raffle, direct donations, and the fantastic p#hohotobooth, Daily Bread can purchase more food than we could ever get in a grocery store. They buy in bulk, directly from the food industry, which gives them remarkable spending power to help feed the hungry.
Plus, with the direct cash donation you’ve helped us make, food can get to the people who need it faster. The Daily Bread team can focus on purchasing the food that they are in short supply of - essential staples like baby formula and pasta. The money also helps ensure Daily Bread can fund their other activities to fight hunger in our communities, including helping with the cost of delivering food to about 200 food relief programs across the GTA.
Every one of you who participated in whatever way should feel a well-deserved glow at helping HoHoTO fight hunger this Holiday. You just plain rock, Toronto.
If you’re one of the unlucky ones who missed all the fun, you can catch up on some great post-event coverage from Andrew Louis, Matthew Burpee, The Compendium Daily, and elsewhere. Even the National Post ran a little wrap up about the event, for which we’re very grateful. Although it needs to be pointed out that, contrary to the way the Post frames it, HoHoTO is an event created by and for the community - it’s not a corporate partnership with any one sponsor. Molson have been huge supporters of HoHoTO all along, and we’re proud and honoured to have them on board, but we feel the same way about ALL of our sponsors - from awesome folk like David McKendrick at Fused Network (a tiny firm that gave so very, very much this year) to our friends at Rogers, at Teehan + Lax, and so many other supporters and helpers.
Again, thank you all. We really couldn’t do this thing without you.
Your HoHoTO organizing team,
Leila Boujnane
Alexa Clark
Ryan Coleman
Duarte Da Silva
April Dunford
Peter Flaschner
Rob Hyndman
Sheri Moore
Michael O’Connor Clarke
Michael Penney
Michele Perras
Corey Reid
Ryan Taylor
Rannie Turingan
Elena Yunusov
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