Chile’s Teletón makes its way to the States at D.C. embassy event

Chilean Embassy building in Washington D.C.

WASHINGTON D.C. — Teletón, Chile’s annual fundraising event for disabled children, begins tonight, Dec. 2  at 10 p.m. at Estadio Nacional. This event will kick off the 27-hour televised fundraiser in Chile. The event, started by Mario Kreutzberger, is in its 33^rd year, and the goal this year is to raise CLP$18.890.559.347 . The event will be televised and broadcast live on all national television channels and radio stations in Chile.

Teletón is also making its way overseas. In the spirit of the fundraiser, on Saturday, Dec. 3, the Chilean Embassy in Washington D.C. will hold a special event organized in conjuction with the Corporación Cultural Chile, to fundraise for this cause for disabled children in Chile.

Beginning at 11 a.m. and going on until 8 p.m., the embassy will be receiving voluntary donations, in cash or check. Participants will also have the opportunity to follow the event on the international channel send of TVN. The station will be projected on a large screen in the embassy’s exposition room, which houses a work by Chilean painter Mario Toral that will be on display as well.

“There will be Chilean food for sale from which all proceeds will go to support the Teletón, and to make the event more enjoyable there will be plenty of good music and good company,” said Chilean embassy employee Emilia Edwards.

The event is open to Chileans, Latin Americans and Americans, and the embassy is hoping to bring in about 1,000 people during event, according to Edwards. The embassy is publicizing the event through various press releases as well as bi-national families in the D.C. area.

The non-profit Corporación Cultural Chile is one of the three Chilean residents of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Every year they assist the embassy in organizing a pro Teletón event.

“Friends of Chile are always come,” Edwards said.

Cristóbal Fernández, a Chilean in his final year at the University of Maryland studying psychology, will be present tomorrow at the event. In 1995, Fernández went regularly to the Teletón center in Santiago for physical therapy.

“I couldn’t walk before that, but after the therapy I got there I was able to,” Fernández said. “They made a miracle.”

Fernández hopes that everyone, both in the D.C. area and in Chile, will help Teletón and make a donation.

“[Teletón] allows kids to be supported by all of Chile,” he said. “They make all people feel important.”