Poland’s biggest charity fundraiser again breaks record despite pandemic and conservative criticism

Despite the pandemic forcing it to move most of its fundraising efforts online, Poland’s biggest annual charity fundraiser has again broken its donation record at the end of its grand finale, which took place yesterday.

As always in recent times, however, the event was not without political controversy. This year it allied itself with the Women’s Strike movement that has led protests against a near-total abortion ban. There was also sparring between its frontman, Jerzy Owsiak, and public television, which accused him of hypocrisy.

The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (WOŚP), which has been taking place since every year since 1993, announced that it had raised over 127 million zloty (€28 million), 12.5 million zloty than last year’s previous record.

The final total, due to be announced in the spring once all donations have come in, will be even higher. Last year it reached 186 million zloty.

Most of the money raised by WOŚP is used to support healthcare in Poland, and it is particularly known for purchasing medical equipment for children’s hospitals. Last year, it also donate money to help those impacted by the Australian bush fires.

This year’s grand finale took place slightly later than usual, and the restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic meant that the colourful concerts in towns and cities throughout Poland that are one of WOŚP’s trademarks could not take place, with most events happening online.

But despite the additional challenges faced by this year’s events, fundraisers were not deterred. Almost 120,000 volunteers, many of them children and young people, collected donations, braving the cold on the streets of Poland, while Poles in other countries also organised collections.

As always,  contributors were rewarded with the organisation’s distinctive heart-shaped stickers – although this year volunteers were under instructions to hand stickers over, rather than applying them themselves.

Meanwhile, celebrities also helped with fundraising efforts, including by putting items and experiences up for auction. Footballer Robert Lewandowski – recently named as FIFA and UEFA’s men’s player of the year – donated his shirt from last year’s Champions League final, with bidding so far reaching 73,000 zloty.

The proceeds of this year’s event will be spent particularly on children’s laryngology, otolaryngology and head diagnostics equipment, according to the organisation’s website.

Owsiak, the founder and frontman of the Great Orchestra, said that the most important thing was not the new record sum that had been raised, but what it represented.

“If something triumphed today, it is not necessarily the amount…but this enormous Poland from the most beautiful times and our solidarity that we always have within us when we want to find in ourselves friendship, love, and fraternity,” he said, quoted by TVN24.

Before the finale, Owsiak had thanked the Women’s Strike organisation for its decision to suspend abortion protests while WOŚP was fundraising over the weekend. “We are playing for the women,” he said.

The alliance incurred the wrath of many Polish conservatives, many of whom have long disliked Owsiak’s secular, liberal values and have accused him and his family of benefiting financially from the event. His support for Women’s Strike this year led to accusations of hypocrisy.

“The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity is collecting money for sick children arm in arm with the so-called Women’s Strike, which wants to kill these sick children in their mother’s womb on demand,” announced a newsreader on public broadcaster TVP, which is under the influence of the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Last night’s main news bulletin on TVP featured a 20-second report on WOŚP’s fundraising efforts after a number of other stories, followed by a five-minute segment criticising the “festival of absurdities and hypocrisies”, reports Gazeta.pl.

Since PiS came to power in 2015, state-linked entities have withdrawn support for WOŚP. In 2017, TVP decided to stop screening the finale of the fundraiser, which instead switched to private broadcaster TVN. Yet donations have continued to increase year by year.

“You are not my television, you are not the television of millions of Poles, you have nothing in common with the words ‘public television’,” said Owsiak, in response to TVP’s criticism.

Government figures and President Andrzej Duda did not comment directly on WOŚP this year. However, the president and his wife, Agata Kornhauser-Duda, did offer a pair of pens for auction, signed “with warm thanks for support for children’s laryngology”. The current highest bid stands at 9,900 zloty.

A video widely shared on social media showed one example of the hostility of some sections of Polish society towards WOŚP. A Catholic priest in Kraków shouts at a young volunteer collecting for the fundraiser near a church, telling her to leave the area and describing WOŚP as a “diabolical organisation”.

However, another film showed a priest in Elbląg belonging to the Polish-Catholic Church of the Republic of Poland – which is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church – putting all the money from the Sunday mass collection into a WOŚP donations tin.

“I’ve had two strokes and a heart attack, and many stays in hospital. And when I was lying in intensive care, on a ventilator and other equipment, I always noticed the hearts stuck on medical equipment [purchased by WOŚP]…I can still see them,” the priest, Kazimierz Klaban, told Natemat.pl.

Main image credit: Agnieszka Sadowska/Agencja Gazeta

Ben Koschalka

Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.