Calgary charity receives thousands in donations after challenge from Oilers fan
Posted Jan 16, 2020 7:46 pm.
CALGARY (660 NEWS) – A Calgary charity is getting a huge donation thanks to a Twitter post.
Earlier this week, Edmonton Oilers fan Samantha Costa, aka @SaminYEG on Twitter, said she was donating to Brown Bagging 4 Calgary Kids in response to a GoFundMe campaign for Flames billboards.
What started as a $25 donation from Costa has now grown to over $32,000 thanks to support from businessman Brett Wilson.
Absolutely incredible ???????? https://t.co/QcDUOb759A
— BB4CK-Brown Bagging (@BrownBaggingIt) January 16, 2020
“We care for over 4,700 hungry kids every day in Calgary,” Tanya Koshowski, Executive Director of Brown Bagging 4 Calgary Kids said. “The financial impact is that our cost for a lunch is only two dollars, so at 44,000 dollars, that’s 22,000 lunches made which is incredible.”
Koshowski adds donations were sent in from all over the world including Canada, Australia and California.
Flames fan Mohamed Elsaghir created the GoFundMe page last weekend to raise money for multiple billboards of Matthew Tkachuk to be put up in Edmonton.
READ MORE: GoFundMe for Flames billboard in Edmonton reaches its goal
Elsaghir said any extra funds would be given to the ALS foundation.
That’s when Calgary radio station CJAY92 heard the news and said it would cover the cost of the billboards so more money for ALS could come in.
As of Thursday afternoon, over $5,000 was raised through the GoFundMe campaign.
For Koshowski, she’s still overwhelmed at the support.
“This helps us to ensure that we are here to meet whatever the need might be and we’ve seen a huge growth in need, over 50 per cent growth over the last couple years. We weren’t expecting anything like this to come through the organization starting this year so it all helps, we’re so grateful.”
