Kent County Today

Delaware State Chamber of Commerce issued the following announcement on Dec. 18.

The United Way of Delaware today announced a $5,000 donation towards The Grand’s Healthcare Front-Line Workers Holiday Challenge. The challenge, started by The Grand’s Board of Directors, aims to raise funds to send front-line healthcare workers in Delaware through the Winter in Wilmington Light Show for FREE.

“The United Way of Delaware is proud to partner with The Grand to provide this small token of our appreciation for our frontline healthcare workers and their families,” said Dan Cruce, Chief Operating Officer of United Way of Delaware. “The response of our healthcare community in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been nothing short of heroic.  From all of us at United Way of Delaware, we say thank you, thank you, thank you and wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season.”

Mark Fields, Executive Director of The Grand, concurred, “We are so grateful to the United Way for supporting this idea. We launched this event to bring a little bit of joy and light into the community’s holiday, and nobody deserves that relief more than our health workers. The United Way has helped them and helped The Grand both with one gift.”

This donation will allow 200 healthcare workers from four Delaware based hospitals to attend the light show for no cost to them.  The four hospitals currently being supported are:

• ChristianaCare

• St. Francis Healthcare

• Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children

• Bayhealth

Tickets will be distributed by the hospitals to their front-line staff.

With this gift, the Grand board and several personal Facebook fundraisers have already raised over $15,000 to send health workers to the light show. Individuals interested in donating to the cause can make their own gift by clicking here. Corporations or small businesses that are interested in supporting this campaign should contact Kate Baker Frawley at 302-658-7897 x3204 or KBFrawley@grandopera.org.

Tickets for the general public are on sale now and are $25 per car. They are available online only at www.TheGrandWilmington.org. To help make the event enjoyable for everyone, advanced online reservations/pre-purchased admission is STRONGLY ENCOURAGED. The Grand is not accepting any in-person purchases at our box offices due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Performances run now through January 3, 2021, excluding Christmas Even/Day and New Year’s Eve/Day. Gates are open from 5pm-9:30pm. 

Original source can be found here.