Variety, the Children's Charity
Encyclopedia
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
on October 10, 1927, when a group of eleven men involved in show business
Show business
Show business, sometimes shortened to show biz, is a vernacular term for all aspects of entertainment. The word applies to all aspects of the entertainment industry from the business side to the creative element ....
set up a social club which they named the "Variety Club". On Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...
1928, a small baby was left on the steps the Sheridan Square Film Theatre, with a note reading:
Please take care of my baby. Her name is Catherine. I can no longer take care of her. I have eight others. My husband is out of work. She was born on Thanksgiving Day. I have always heard of the goodness of showbusiness people and pray to God that you will look after her. Signed, a heartbroken mother.
Since efforts to trace the mother failed, the members of the Variety Club named the child Catherine Varsity Sheridan, after the club and the theatre on whose steps she was found, and undertook to fund the child's living expenses and education. Later the club decided to raise funds for other disadvantaged children.
The discovery of the baby has inspired the Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
film, Variety Girl
Variety Girl
Variety Girl is an all-star movie musical produced by Paramount Pictures. Numerous Paramount contract players and directors make cameos or perform songs, with particularly large amounts of screen time featuring Bing Crosby...
.
History
In May of 1947, a group of members of the Variety Clup of New England, toured Sidney FarberSidney Farber
Sidney Farber was a pediatric pathologist. He was born in 1903 in Buffalo, New York, the third oldest of a family of 14 children. He was a graduate of the University of Buffalo in 1923. He took his first year of medical school at the Universities of Heidelberg and Freiburg in Germany. He entered...
's lab at Children's Hospital Boston
Children's Hospital Boston
Children's Hospital Boston is a 396-licensed bed children's hospital in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area of Boston, Massachusetts.At 300 Longwood Avenue, Children's is adjacent both to its teaching affiliate, Harvard Medical School, and to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute...
, where Farber studied childhood leukemia. As a result of this tour, the group's leader, Bill Koster, and Farber ended up founding the Children's Cancer Research Fund in order to raise money and sponsor research into forms of cancer affecting children. The two men also founded The Jimmy Fund
The Jimmy Fund
The Jimmy Fund raises vital funds to support adult and pediatric cancer care and research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1948 to raise funds for patient care and the fight against children’s cancer, the Jimmy Fund now supports the search for new cancer...
, which raises money for the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute.
Terminology
From its origins in the world of show business, Variety often uses carnivalFunfair
A funfair or simply "fair" is a small to medium sized travelling show primarily composed of stalls and other amusements. Larger fairs such as the permanent fairs of cities and seaside resorts might be called a fairground, although technically this should refer to the land where a fair is...
and circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
terminology. For instance, a local or national chapter of the charity is known as a "tent", and the main board of trustees and others of a particular tent is called the Crew. This is named after those who erected the old circus tents or nowadays provide the various technical experts to make a film or stage a live production. The chairman of the board is called the Chief Barker, after the man who drummed up customers at the fairground.
Telethons
In some localities, Variety holds fundraising telethons for the organisation.- Currently, WKBW-TVWKBW-TVWKBW-TV, channel 7, is the ABC affiliate for the Buffalo, New York television market, and is one of many local Buffalo TV stations seen over-the-air and on cable in Canada. Its transmitter is located at 8909 Center Street in Colden. The station is owned by the Granite Broadcasting Corporation, who...
in Buffalo, New YorkBuffalo, New YorkBuffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
holds an annual Variety telethon for the Children's Hospital of BuffaloChildren's Hospital of BuffaloWomen & Children's Hospital of Buffalo is a children's hospital located in Buffalo, New York.It is a famous pediatric facility serving patients in Western New York and parts of Southern Ontario...
in March. The telethon has ran annually for 47 years, though in recent years, WKBW, citing budget problems, has cut the telethon's length. The organisers claimed that this was the longest running locally produced telethon in the world, though the WHAS Crusade for ChildrenWHAS Crusade for ChildrenThe WHAS Crusade for Children is an annual telethon broadcast by WHAS-TV and WHAS Radio in Louisville, Kentucky. The telethon benefits a wide range of children's charities throughout Kentucky and southern Indiana....
and the Green BayGreen Bay, WisconsinGreen Bay is a city in and the county seat of Brown County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, located at the head of Green Bay, a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It has an elevation of above sea level and is located north of Milwaukee. As of the 2010 United States Census,...
Cerebral Palsy telethon on WBAY-TVWBAY-TVWBAY-TV is the ABC television affiliate in Green Bay, Wisconsin, broadcasting on UHF digital channel 23 from a transmitter located in the town of Ledgeview, Wisconsin, and master control based in its building in downtown Green Bay...
both began their runs before the Buffalo Variety telethon.
- CHAN-TVCHAN-TVCHAN-DT is a television station in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, broadcasting over-the-air on digital channel 22, and available via cable providers in the area on channel 11. Owned by Shaw Communications as a part of its Shaw Media division, it is the West Coast flagship station of the...
in VancouverVancouverVancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
holds an annual Show of Hearts telethon every year, usually the second weekend of February, for the Variety organisation in British ColumbiaBritish ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
; what previously featured live acts among the stories and pleas to donate, the telethon now features pre-recorded concerts as entertainment, in similar fashion to pledge drivePledge driveA pledge drive is an extended period of fundraising activities, generally used by public broadcasting stations to increase contributions. The term "pledge" originates from the promise a contributor makes to send in funding at regular intervals for a certain amount of time...
s on most PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
stations.
- CKND-TVCKND-TVCKND-DT is a television station that broadcasts from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It is the Manitoba outlet for the Global Television Network.-History:...
WinnipegWinnipegWinnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
presented their own annual Show of Hearts every spring, through the early-2000s.
Countries with chapters
To date the organization has grown to include 55 chapters (or "tents" as they are termed by the organization) in 13 countries worldwide, including:- United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
- United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
- CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
- AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
- JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
- IsraelIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
- The NetherlandsNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
- New ZealandNew ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
- South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
- FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
- IrelandIrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
- MexicoMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
- BarbadosBarbadosBarbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
- Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
External links
North America- Variety of USA
- Variety of Northern California
- Variety of Canada (British Columbia)
- Variety of Buffalo
- Variety Ontario
Europe
Middle-East
Africa
Asia
Oceania