Shaw Rocket, Pitt, C21 back charity event

A host of TV companies have come on board as sponsors of this weekend’s Kids Benefit Cocktail Party in Cannes to support three organisations that offer hope to disadvantaged children.

Isaiah Ellender has a rare disorder

The second annual Kids Benefit Cocktail Party will be held on Sunday October 13 from 22.30 to 00.30 at ClubC21 in the Grand Hotel Gardens.

The Shaw Rocket Fund in Canada, industry veteran Adina Pitt and C21 have again partnered for the special event. The goal is to raise at least US$30,000 in corporate and individual donations to support three organisations: The Aplastic Anaemia Trust, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and Hope Works.

Along with Shaw Rocket Fund, Pitt and C21, the founding sponsors are 9 Story Media Group, Boat Rocker Media, Distribution 360, Epic Story Media, Guru Studio, Sonar Canada and Sinking Ship Entertainment.

New sponsors include Fresh TV, WildBrain (fka DHX Media), Apartment 11 Productions, ZAG America, ON Kids & Family and Cartoon Network.

Sponsorship is still open and anyone looking to support the event should contact Nicole Buck.

The annual event supports different kids’ charities each year and encourages the children’s media community to donate to the cause.

The Aplastic Anaemia Trust and Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles have been chosen in support of Isaiah Ellender, the son of David Ellender, CEO of Sonar Entertainment, who has a very rare life-threatening disorder that affects just six in one million children. Donations can be made here.

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is one of the top five children’s hospitals in the US. It serves a large, complex, multicultural population and has helped establish a significant collection of data on aplastic anaemia and other blood diseases for a national consortium retrospective survey in the US. Donations can be made here.

A portion of the event’s sponsorship dollars are going towards season two of the Hope Works initiative, which aims to guide children through the complex media landscape and give kids the tools to become engaged, confident, inspired and hopeful young people.

Led by Lucy Murphy, head of kids’ content at Sky, and Alison Stewart, former head of CBeebies production at the BBC, it launched last year and saw numerous global media companies invest their time and creativity in short films aimed at children aged four to 12. Sponsorship donations will go towards creating more of these films to inspire hope in kids around the world.

Held for the first time in 2018, the event raised over US$32,000 for Halle’s Hope from 12 sponsors and close to 100 individual donations, far exceeding the initial goal of US$10,000.