Toy Show Appeal raises over €6.6m for Irish charities

At the end of Friday’s show, host Ryan Tubridy (above) announced that €3,347,912, had been raised. By Sunday evening, the figure had jumped to €5,045,926. Picture: Andres Poveda

The Toy Show Appeal has raised €6,601,895 for Irish charities, RTÉ has confirmed.

Viewers of this year's Late Late Toy Show, raised over €6m for the second year in a row, marking a total of €13m of much-needed funds over the course of its two years.

The RTÉ Toy Show Appeal, in partnership with The Community Foundation for Ireland, helped more than 600,000 children and their families across the country last year.

The proceeds raised over the weekend will be distributed among different children’s charities in Ireland.

The average viewership number for Friday night's show is over 1.8m, taking catch-up viewing on Saturday and Sunday into account, making it one of the highest-rating TV programmes on a single channel on record in Ireland.

Online, Irish viewers across the world stayed connected by streaming the show on the RTÉ Player from over 150 countries including from all fifty states in the USA and all eight Australian territories. 

Over 330,000 streams live and on-demand across the weekend, making it one of the most-watched programmes of 2021.

Ed Sheeran and the Toy Show Choir performance was the most-watched clip from the show with viewers bowled over by the show's many young stars. DJ Callum and his hype-man Jackson, Fashionista Abigale and Kellie Harrington's knock-out surprise were also massive hits on social media.

Earlier today, the co-founder of Revolut revealed he donated €1.1m to the 2021 Toy Show Appeal.

Vlad Yatsenko confirmed the donation early on Monday, praising the support for the charity appeal.

At the end of Friday’s show, €3,347,912 had been raised. By Sunday evening, the figure had jumped to €5,045,926.

Revolut partnered with the Toy Show this year, meaning users of the banking services tool can donate to the campaign directly from the app.

Mr Yatsenko said that Revolut app customers showed “incredible support” to the appeal.

On Saturday, he promised to donate €100,000 to the appeal following tech issues with the app on Friday night.

The app was overwhelmed for a short time due to the number of people looking to donate.

“What an incredible support Revolut App customers gave to a worthy charity,” Mr Yatsenko said.

“Granted, there were some challenges at the [peak] of the live campaign. So, I've personally donated €100K, and will also match any further donations this weekend via Revolut App up to €1m,” said Mr Yatsenko on social media.

On Monday, he shared a screenshot of his donation, which came in at €1,100,011.33.

“Thank you all for the outpouring of support and donations to the #LateLateToyShow2021 charity appeal via [Revolut],” he stated.

Thank you all for the outpouring of support and donations to the #LateLateToyShow2021 charity appeal via @RevolutApp @RTELateLateShow pic.twitter.com/Cl3rxVlTFS

— Vlad Yatsenko ☮️ to 🇺🇦, 🖕to 🇷🇺 (@vyatsenko) November 29, 2021

 

The “unbelievable” donation was praised as something that will “help change Irish children’s lives for good”.

Last year, the first year of the appeal, more than €6m was raised for charity.

It was inspired by Saoirse Ruane, who had been a guest on the show in 2020.

Saoirse raised money through a host of fundraisers because after being diagnosed with a tumour she "had to get her leg taken away" and she will need a prosthesis until she is 18.

Saoirse raised more money than was initially needed so she donated the extra money to the charities and hospitals that had helped her.