{"id":715,"date":"2011-02-04T10:37:02","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T10:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/?p=715"},"modified":"2011-02-04T10:37:02","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T10:37:02","slug":"the-variety-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/2011\/02\/04\/the-variety-charity\/","title":{"rendered":"The Variety Charity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

If you have ever attended a movie in February, you’ve likely encountered Variety, the Children’s Charity<\/a>. Prior to the mid\u00a090’s, you may have seen a\u00a0celebrity endorsed trailer for the charity, followed by a donation basket being passed through the audience. In more recent years, you’ve probably noted your theatre of choice selling gold, heart shaped, pins this time of year. For those who have ever wondered what this fundraising effort\u00a0was all about, or why movie theatres\u00a0were involved:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On Christmas Eve, 1928, an infant was discovered, abandoned,\u00a0at the nursery of the Sheridan Square Theatre, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.\u00a0A note accompanying the child stated that the mother\u00a0already had eight children and could not afford a ninth. The baby’s name was given as “Catherine” and the reason for choosing a theatre as, “I have always heard of the goodness of show business and I pray to God that you will look out for her.”<\/p>\n

Fortunately, for Catherine, the theatre’s owner, John H. Harris, was one of\u00a0eleven entertainment industry businessmen who had recently founded\u00a0the Variety\u00a0social club. He and his fellow Variety Club members decided that, since the infant had been entrusted to show business people, they should underwrite her financial care. Starting with that one abandoned child, who they named Catherine Variety Sheridan, the\u00a0eleven businessmen began assisting\u00a0other needy children; ultimately converting their local social club in to an industry wide charitable organization. In addition to long standing fund raising drives and telethons,\u00a0the\u00a0organization initiated the annual gold heart\u00a0program in 1991; which has collected over $100 million for disabled and disadvantaged children to date.<\/p>\n

As for Catherine;\u00a0after becoming \u00a0somewhat of a period celebrity, she was adopted by a couple in Long Island, New York, and renamed Joan Riker (to afford her a more normal upbringing). She went on to become a nurse and start a family of her own, before returning to the spotlight in 1980, as\u00a0an ambassador for the Variety Club charity. Ms. Riker passed away in 1994, but the\u00a0organization founded\u00a0around her continues to support children’s charities, hospitals, and camps throughout the United States and eight other countries.<\/p>\n

As we enter February, movie theatres across the country will once again be selling gold heart\u00a0pins to raise money for Variety, the\u00a0Children’s Charity. If you happen to be catching a movie during this time, consider purchasing one of the $2 pins\u00a0and help make a difference in the life of a child like Catherine.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you have ever attended a movie in February, you’ve likely encountered Variety, the Children’s Charity. Prior to the mid\u00a090’s, you may have seen a\u00a0celebrity endorsed trailer for the charity, followed by a donation basket being passed through the audience. In more recent years, you’ve probably noted your theatre of choice selling gold, heart shaped, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":719,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions\/719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}