Chrismas Expo Has Raised 2.5 Million Lindens After Five Days

Tuesday December 10 had a couple milestones for the Relay for Life Christmas Expo. Two days earlier on the Sunday Relay Rap, Stingray Rainmaker had stated, "'IF the Christmas Expo meets its goal of $20,000 it will enable the ACS to bring the VR Goggle Program to a new Childrens Hospital and reach many many more Kids in treatment!" That likely spurred the Relayers to donate more. By 5:35 PM Tuesday afternoon, the two million Linden mark had been reached. Late in the night, the total passed two and a half million Linden dollars.

"We are at L$2,566,823," Nuala Maracas, one of the women behind the Expo, told me, "We did L$550,000 tonight, was an amazing night. ... Our goal is $20,000 US  (L$5 Million)." When asked what the high point of the Expo was, she answered, "Seeing communities from all over SL,  Goreans, Kids Tinies and more all coming together to help us get those VR Headsets for the kids with cancer. The biggest one is learning that because of the Christmas Expo that the Society is making this a  program, not just research.

"When I first approached Jeff (Sting), our American Cancer Society Staff Partner, about the VR Headset for pediatric cancer patients as the possible recipient for the Christmas Expo fundraising efforts for 2020, he was not aware it was even a Society program.  He looked into it and learned more.  With persistence the Society agreed and we were able to announce it as our goal! As a result of what we are doing here the Society has decided to make it a patient program and if we reach our goal it will expand to another hospital."

The Expo goes on to Sunday, December 15.