Five people volunteered to get locked up in a cage on May 15, raising $9,985 for the Olds ATB Financial's first ever Jail-N-Bail fundraiser in support of the Alberta Children's Hospital Foundation.The Jail-N-Bail is part of the bank's Teddy for Toonie campaign, which is a month-long fundraiser for the foundation.Volunteers spent their time individually in a makeshift “jail” located inside the branch and obtained pledges to secure their release. Throughout the day they were on the phone, trying to drive up donations.According to ATB's Kelly Gillings, who organizes Teddy for Toonie with another co-worker, all five “jailbirds” exceeded their pledge targets.“I'm very happy with the success that we've had today and I look forward to doing it again and hope to have more involvement next year,” Gillings said.Teddy for Toonie also includes a silent auction that runs until the end of the month. The total fundraising goal is $8,000.Branch manager Val Joevenazzo brought the Jail-N-Bail concept over from ATB's Airdrie location, Gillings said.“We wanted to try something new. Get some more involvement in this and we decided, let's try a jail and bail,” she said.ATB employees used their network of customers and local businesses to find people who would be interested in donating their time to sit in “jail,” Gillings said.“We actually got a couple of different names of people who were looking to be involved in their community,” she said.”Ryan Turnbull, a project manager and estimator for Netook Construction, was one of the “jailbirds.”As a father, he decided to participate in the cause.“For the kids, the children's hospital. I have a little girl, three years old, so they need a little bit of help. Who knows? Maybe someday we'll need to use it,” Turnbull said.Joevenazzo also said the children's hospital in Calgary is a cause that's personal to many people, adding many staff have had kids receive treatment at a children's hospital.“You could probably look at every person in this branch and know that they've made use of the children's hospital,” she said. “It's an amazing cause and it's something that we all hold near and dear to our hearts.”Gillings and her husband built the cage from materials donated by Northwest Pipe in Innisfail.She said it folds up but is looking for a place to store it until when she hopes the bank will host the event again.“Because I think a lot of people are having fun with it. I would definitely like to do this as a yearly thing and hopefully it gets bigger and better each year.”The list of jailbirds during the Jail-N-Bail included: Ryan Beal, Cori Bonnett, Kathy Kimpton, Tami Gardner and Ryan [email protected]
