The nationwide and not-for-profit charity has offered singing, dancing and performing workshops to disabled youth across New Zealand for over 22 years.
StarJam chief executive Gilli Sinclair spoke to Metro News, saying they have been absolutely overwhelmed and totally amazed by the support since 1pm yesterday.
“In our wildest dreams, we never thought we’d raise $80,000 in just 24 hours. I cannot tell you how grateful we are to New Zealand.”
She says the funding problem has been caused by both short term cash flow and the ongoing impacts of the cost of living.
“We have traditionally relied on grants for our income and we are trying to have a multifaceted funding approach. The charity market is quite busy at the moment, so we’ve been getting less grant money.
“What we have done is developed our medium-term strategy where we have direct marketing, new events coming up and some jammer led initiatives, but it’s another month or two before they start.”
StarJam has around 800 kids attending one of the 80 workshops across New Zealand every week.
But with an estimated 150,000 disabled youth in New Zealand, Sinclair reckons the charity is only reaching a small fraction of the population they can tap into, and says more funding could mean further reach for the charity.
“We would like to grow and expand our services once we’re in a better financial situation. We’re in about 10 main areas across the country, we’ve heard from about 20 more, so there’s no limit on our demand.”
