Teletón (a little late)

This is from Nov. 29:

Today is the Teletón, a massive fundraising effort by what must be the largest charitable organization in Chile (also called Teletón), which helps disabled children. It’s a 27-hour TV special where people call in to donate money, but it’s also street fairs and an enormous publicity campaign. For the past month there have been posters practically everywhere advertising the Teletón and the companies that endorse it. Plus commercials. It’s like every single company in Chile has jumped on the Teletón bandwagon. The tagline is “Teletón 2008, 28 y 29 de noviembre…gracias a ti, podemos seguir” (thanks to you, we can continue) which is now burned into my memory because I’ve heard it or read it at least 200 times. The other funny thing about it is that there’s this guy who was been hosting it for 30 years, a famous TV personality: Don Francisco. He’s in every single one of the commercials, holding up anything from diapers to dog food and saying “Teletón 2008, 28 y 29 de noviembre…gracias a ti, podemos seguir”. I think it’s interesting that all of Chile really comes together for this. It’s almost like a national holiday; not something I can ever see happening in the U.S. It could only happen in a small country where the people put up with a lot of annoying advertising (October was the municipal elections, with a month of cheesy posters with smiling candidates covering basically every surface), and also have a strong sense of solidarity.