Last night's Telethon to try and raise ￡100K to help save a young man's life
Inderpal Singh has spent the last 5 years fighting leukaemia, all UK treatments now exhausted his last hope is Car T-Cell Treatment in Israel but at a cost of ￡100,000. As of last Sunday, the Just Giving Page his family set up had raised around ￡2,500. With doctors in Israel confirming Inderpal was OK for the treatment the race was on to get the money - the clock was ticking as treatment had to start in the next 28 days because of his deteriorating health and weakened immune system.
On Sunday night my colleague Kam Singh at the Sikh Channel arranged with Inderpal's family a studio interview so they could raise awareness of his situation. What happened next was amazing as viewers started to donate to the Just Giving Page and started phoning into the studio wanting to make donations. The channel hurriedly called in staff to man the phones but many people couldn't get through and by the time Kam had finished the show around ￡38,000 had been donated.
Although I had donated on Sunday while watching the interview show I wanted to do more so when on Monday afternoon I heard Sikh Channel was going to do a further longer show at 7.30pm that day specifically to raise funds in the form of a Telethon I volunteered to drive to Birmingham and man the phones. Arriving at the studio around 7pm, Kam said he was struggling with tonsillitis and asked if I could help him on camera as opposed to taking phone calls as they had managed to get enough people to take calls? I agreed.
So, at 7.30pm with Inderpal's family including his wife in the studio we kicked off our Telethon, highlighting Inderpal's story in both Punjabi and English, and asking viewers to donate. We had 2 hours to try and raise around ￡62,000, and on a Monday night – the task looked positively Herculean.
With Kam appealing to the channel’s many older Punjabi speakers I took the lead in targeting younger viewers who are more fluent in English. It’s a strategy that worked effectively as the phone lines were jammed and the donations started flooding in, plus the online donations started to race onwards too. By 9pm we had taken the total from ￡38,000 to ￡55,000, and we challenged viewers that if we could get to ￡65,000 by 9.30pm when the show was due to end we would look to extend for a further 30 minutes. By 9.30pm we had hit the ￡67,000 mark and channel boss D.S. Bal texted Kam to say he would let us continue the show until 10pm.
Inderpal’s family did a great job of telling viewers how tough life had been for them over the last 5 years, including how his parents had given up jobs to care for him and even had to remortgage their house to pay for private medical treatment in the UK. Even now they were sleeping on chairs in the hospital room in Israel with their son to pay for his treatment instead of costly hotels.
As 10pm approached our challenge of raising more than ￡75,000 had been met and with calls still coming in thick and fast this got us a further 30-minute extension. Both Kam and I, plus the amazing team in the studio and telephone volunteers wanted to finish the job and hit the target before we went home.
We could show short video clips of Inderpal thanking viewers from his hospital bed, and seeing him in such a weakened state and listening to his parent’s heartfelt appeals the donations kept on coming. With minutes to go until 10.30pm the total raised was sitting at around ￡83,000, and it was looking like we wouldn’t hit our ￡100,000 target. Determined not to go down without a fight it was down to me to call in one last favour with the channel controller Gurpreet Sandhu and get one final extension of a further 30 minutes to help us make our number. Literally within seconds of texting Gurpreet begging to let us continue until 11pm I got a text back saying, “OK, go smash it”
In addition to this text there were now many others on my phone now from people saying well done and thank you. So, without wishing to sound ungrateful I took a leaf out of Sir Bob Geldof’s book during Live Aid. Stopping well short of dropping any F-Bombs I told people we appreciated their thanks and kind wishes but we preferred their money and Inderpal really needed their money. There was no point in only getting ? of the way to the target his lifeline was dependent on ￡100,000 and nothing less would do.
As we got to ￡85,500 there was an urgent message for Kam and so I held the fort while he went downstairs to join the call centre team taking the calls. I continued to cajole businesses as some of our biggest donations to date had come from companies. I also appealed to Sikh Channel viewers in Canada and the U.S. who were now online and probably wondering why their programmes had all been changed!
With now only minutes to go we were so near yet so far and with Kam returning to join me on the couch I thought we were going to come up short. With a wry smile that then turned into a huge grin he then broke the news that the phone call he had been asked to take was from a construction company and they had agreed to donate ￡14,500, so we’d hit our ￡100,000 total with 10 minutes still to go. It’s fair to say the elation was huge and the relief palpable. Inderpal’s family were ecstatic that Sikh Channel viewers and the broader community that had shared Inderpal’s story and donated too had taken donations from ￡2,500 to ￡100,000.
Doctors had told Inderpal’s family his treatment needed to start within the next 28 days but they needed to find the ￡100,000. Well collectively we did it in under 28 hours, 26 hours to be exact and hopefully Inderpal’s treatment in Israel can start this week. Once he finishes this treatment he will return to the UK where a bone marrow donor match has been found for him. Inderpal is a fighter having fought back time after time when he was told it was all over, we hope and pray that he continues his fight and this treatment brings this father back to his two young children in the coming weeks.
Driving home at around midnight I felt such a sense of achievement and my faith in the kindness of strangers and humanity is so complete as I write this before finally going to sleep.
At the start of the appeal I said, “If the worst thing you can do as a human is to take a life, then the best thing you can do is to save a life”. I applaud and thank all those that donated to help save a life.
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh