WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: Pictured above, Western New York Labor Unions and their Members contributed more than $50,000 to the 60th Annual Variety Club Kids Telethon that was held over the weekend.  During a scheduled Labor Hour on Sunday, Variety Club Kids Telethon Labor Chair and Teamsters Local 264 Representative Tony Vaccaro (holding a microphone in the middle of the photo) presided over a parade of Labor Leaders who lined up to make their Unions’ contributions.  (Photos Courtesy of International Union of Painters & Allied Trades (IUPAT)/District Council 4 Representative William Mayer Via The Social Network Facebook)

(LANCASTER, NEW YORK) – Western New York’s Labor Community and its Members came through, once again, raising more than $50,000 for the 2022 Variety Club Kids Telethon over the weekend to benefit Buffalo’s Oishei Children’s Hospital.  When the dust settled, the 60th annual televised Telethon raised a grand total of $906,060.

“It’s ‘always great to see Labor stepping up.’  I want to ‘thank all of Labor for their continued support,’” Variety Club Telethon Labor Chair and Teamsters Local 264 Representative Tony Vaccaro told WNYLaborToday.com.  “‘I’m very pleased and pleasantly surprised that we crossed the ($50,000) mark.’  ‘I can’t put into words how proud I am.’”

A procession of Labor Leaders - representing the area’s Public and Private Sectors, as well as the Building Trades,  personally presented their Unions’ and Memberships’ donations during the Telethon’s Labor Hour, which was held Sunday afternoon at Variety Club’s headquarters in Lancaster, just outside Buffalo. 

The $50,000-plus raised by Labor - which included more than $18,000 alone from United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 774, was $17,000 more than what Labor donated the year before during a Telethon that was also dealing with complications due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

“Last year was an ‘exception,’” Vaccaro said.  “This year ‘we welcomed any and all’ donations from Labor.  UAW Local (774) donated ($15,000) last year and ‘those guys never cease to amaze me.’  ‘We were just tickled pink’ (with their increased donation this year).”

Despite the Coronavirus Pandemic curtailing a number of public donation events that are normally held throughout the year, the 2021 Variety Club Kids Telethon raised nearly $800,000 in 2021, including more than $33,000 that directly came from donations made by Western New York’s Labor Unions and their Members.

All that was raised not only helps the Oishei Children’s Hospital, but also the Robert Warner MD Rehabilitation Center and other children’s charities across the region.

Variety Club Executive Director Richard Goldstein told WNYLaborToday.com that Organized Labor has been with the “longest-running telethon in North America ‘all of its sixty years,’” which - he added, “is ‘one of the reasons why we’re still here while others are not.’”

In addition to Labor’s involvement and donations, Representatives from an variety of individual Unions volunteered to man phones at the Telethon, as well as 30 more phones that were set up at nearby UAW Region 9 Headquarters, where volunteers took donations that were made with credit cards.

“On Sunday it was (62) degrees outside and sunny ‘and we had people who could have been somewhere else enjoying the day committing to giving their time to man those phones’ - ‘giving back to an awesome cause,’” Vaccaro said.

Five-year-old Giovani Fiore - who lives with his family in the Town of Tonawanda and uses multiple services through Children’s Hospital, was this year’s Variety Club Celebrity Child.

Gio, who has Spastic Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy and Epilepsy, is wheelchair dependent, g-tube fed and requires around-the-clock care.

Meanwhile, Vaccaro also took time to single out International Union of Painters & Allied Trades (IUPAT)/District Council 4 Representative William Mayer, who continues to work hard every year helping raise Union dollars for the Telethon.

Mayer, who showed off one of WNYLaborToday.com’s It’s Cool To Be Union T-shirts during the Telethon (pictured below), has also historically designed and sold a variety of hard hat stickers and refrigerator magnets to area Unionists to benefit the Variety Club.

He did the same thing again this year.

“Billy is ‘awesome,’” Vaccaro said. “He ‘makes the Energizer Bunny look like a slug.’  He has ‘endless’ energy.”

By the way, you can also check out a tremendous video Mayer put together on the 2022 Telethon at https://www.facebook.com/william.mayer.397/videos/1335118696901133