TeleMiracle 50: An Iconic Saskatchewan Fundraiser

By Kaiti Hannah, Curatorial Associate

Since their first event in 1977, the TeleMiracle Telethon has grown into an iconic fundraiser for people in Saskatchewan. Over its first 49 years, TeleMiracle has raised $165,034,652 to help people in Saskatchewan with specialized medical needs access care and equipment they may not be able to otherwise afford. 

With TeleMiracle 50 approaching, we’re taking a look at the history of ‘Saskatchewan’s charity.’

The Start of Kinsmen Clubs

The Association of Kinsmen Clubs of Canada was founded in 1920 by Hal Rogers, a First World War veteran living in Hamilton, Ontario. He decided to start a service organization focused on serving the needs of his local community when he found he missed the sense of community he had found in the army.  

The organization quickly grew beyond Ontario, and when the wives of members began to get involved, they formed the Kinettes. The Kinsmen and Kinettes are now known as Kin Canada, which is the largest national service association in Canada.  

The first Kinsmen Club in Saskatchewan was the Kinsmen Club of Regina, chartered in 1926. Today, there are Kin Clubs in over 40 communities across Saskatchewan.

Creating the Kinsmen Foundation

The Kinsmen Foundation is a Saskatchewan charity which was created in 1971 under the leadership of Peter Kilbern.  

TeleMiracle explains that when the Kinsmen Foundation began, “[i]ts two main goals were to first, provide fellowship and service for the Kinsmen and Kinettes, on a provincial basis. Prior to that all clubs just did their own projects in their communities. Second, was to provide funding to anyone in the province who had a physical, mental, or social disability and couldn’t get funding from any other source.” 

By 1975, there were far more requests for funding than the Kinsmen Foundation could meet. The foundation began discussing possibilities for larger fundraisers they could hold to support their charity work. They eventually decided on a telethon, and the first TeleMiracle Telethon was held on February 5-6, 1977.  

The first TeleMiracle organizing committee was chaired by Urban Donlevy, a member of the Kinsmen Club of Saskatoon. The first TeleMiracle raised $1,214,210, the equivalent of over $5.8 million today.  

Saskatchewan is unique in Kin Canada as the only place to have a large province-wide fundraiser like this, done with the help of Kin Clubs from all across the province. Elsewhere, the focus is on the club level.

What They Do

Funds raised from TeleMiracle help people with three main areas of medical care: travel expenses for treatment, specialized equipment, and home renovations.  

Help with travel expenses includes transportation, accommodation, and meals. These can be for short-term visits such as a trip to Saskatoon for dialysis, or longer-term stays such as after an organ transplant when patients are required to stay in the city they had the transplant for 3 months after surgery. TeleMiracle will pay for the cost of their accommodation and meals for the duration of this stay. They will also fund trips to other provinces or countries for treatments not available in Saskatchewan. TeleMiracle has funded trips to Montreal and the United States, for example.  

TeleMiracle will fund a broad range of equipment. Some things they have funded in the past includes scooters, walkers, motorized wheelchairs, conversions to make vans accessible, iPads for text-to-speech technology, hearing aids and lift chairs  

When someone needs to renovate their home to adapt it to meet their needs, TeleMiracle will pay for renovations that allow someone to make their home accessible if they don’t qualify for the provincial government program that assists with those renovations.

TeleMiracle Today

Putting on a telethon the size of TeleMiracle takes a lot of work. Over 700 Kin volunteers and 125 production volunteers help with the production every year, along with two producers, nine office staff, five to seven hair and makeup artists, around 12 cast members and 100 performers. They also have help from SaskTel staff to set up phone lines, staff from the venues where the event is held, as well as companies helping with donations of food/catering, furniture, and other tools and supplies needed for the event to run smoothly.  

The most successful TeleMiracle fundraiser so far has been TeleMiracle 46 in 2022. It raised over $8 million and included the largest single donation in the history of the fundraiser, a bequest of nearly $1.8 million.  

TeleMiracle 50 will take place in Saskatoon on February 28 and March 1, 2026.