12th Guignolée du Dr Julien - A Record-Breaking 1 455 000 $ Raised for the Fondation du Dr Julien

MONTRÉAL, Jan. 17, 2015 /CNW Telbec/ - The Guignolée du Dr Julien ends on a high note with more than 1 455 000 $ raised thanks to the renewed support of the population toward children from vulnerable backgrounds. The Fondation du Dr Julien will use these donations to fund the professional services it provides to children and their families throughout the year in its community social pediatrics centres. Gifts that were generously donated enabled more than 1 200 kids to receive an unexpected present at Christmas and brought some Holiday cheers to families.

" We have to remember that, in disadvantaged neighborhoods, one child out of two reaches school age with a serious global developmental delay [i]. Our approach, community social pediatrics, advocates early intervention which allows us to assist the child throughout his development. By 2020, our ambition is to be able to care and support 20 000 of these kids in community social pediatrics centres across the province of Québec. As popular support to the Fondation du Dr Julien gets stronger every year, we feel even more commited to making that dream come true and everything leads us to believe that anything's possible! ", declared Dr. Gilles Julien, Founder and President of the Fondation du Dr Julien.

The Guignolée du Dr Julien's success lies in great part in the involvement of its 550 volunteers. The Fondation wishes to sincerely thank them as well as its many partners, in particular the Groupe Jean Coutu for its 50,000$ donation within its Guignolée du Dr Julien's Wheel of Fortune campaign on Facebook; Telus for its 10,000$ support to the Guignolée, more specifically through its text message donation campaign; both event spokespersons, Ève Christian and Christian Bégin, and finally the whole Samedi et Rien d'Autre team, a radio show hosted by Joël Le Bigot and broadcasted on ICI Radio-Canada's Première, as well as to the host Jean-Charles Lajoie and his Radio 9 team.

In 2013, the Guignolée du Dr Julien raised 1 350 000 $.

Guignolées Elsewhere in Québec

December 13th also marked Community Social Pediatrics Movement Day. On this occasion, community social pediatrics centers located elsewhere in Montréal (South-Center, Montréal-North, Saint-Laurent, and Verdun) and in the province (Cowansville, Gatineau, Laval, Lévis, Québec, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Trois-Rivières) held their annual guignolée. As each centre is self-financed, locally collected funds will be used to support services provided to vulnerable children and families in their own communities. To see their first guignolée results.

About the Guignolée du Dr Julien

The Guignolée du Dr Julien collects donations for the Fondation du Dr Julien, a non-profit helping more than 2000 kids and their families each year through its two Community Social Pediatrics centers as well as its Garage à musique. Services provided include medical, psychosocial, psycho-educational or educational intervention, innovative therapies (art therapy, ergotherapy, music therapy), adapted services (orthophony, psychology, pedopsychiatry and neuropsychology), and various other sport and cultural activities (summer camps, music courses, theatre, shows, etc.). Funds gathered will also enable the Fondation to accompany community social pediatrics emerging elsewhere in Québec. www.guignoleedrjulien.org

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[i] Institut de la statistique du Québec (2013). Enquête québécoise sur le développement des enfants à la maternelle.

SOURCE Fondation du Dr Julien

Émilie Russo, Communication and Media Relation Consultant, Fondation du Dr Julien, 514-707-2090, [email protected]