Updated midnight.

A total of €5.27 million was donated to L-Istrina, Malta’s largest annual charity telethon on Tuesday, reversing a downward trend in donations seen in the past few years.

It is an increase from the €5,062,415 raised last year.

The 12-hour Boxing Day event raises money for the Malta Community Chest Fund Foundation. It sees celebrities, politicians and hundreds of volunteers come together to encourage donations to the cause.

The funds are mostly used to help finance expensive overseas medical treatment for patients, including children.

President George Vella and Mrs Vella were among those who received phone calls from donors and also received cheques from others who called personally at the studio. With them were many recovered patients who benefited from financial help from the Community Chest Fund and recounted their ordeals.

As the event closed at midnight President George Vella thanked all donors for their 'feast of solidarity' and also showed his appreciation for the organisers.

Early in Tuesday's show €53,700 were donated to the Community Chest Fund after having been collected through the L-Istrina BOV Piggy Bank Campaign where small donations were made by children in all primary and secondary schools in Malta and Gozo.  

BOV CEO Kenneth Farrugia and COO Ernest Agius also presented a donation of €200,000 to L-Istrina from Bank of Valletta.

Meanwhile, €155,000 were donated by consumers through BCRS, the bottle recycling scheme.

Rockestra, one of the main events of the Community Chest Fund, raised €233,615 while the Ball of the August Moon, another CCF event, raised €142,310.

L-Istrina has been running since 1995 and has over the years become a Boxing Day TV staple for many Maltese households. This year, it was held at the Kirkop Sports Hall which was converted into a studio. The event was televised on all major TV stations.

L-Istrina underway on Tuesday. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli.

Organisers had hoped, and eventually managed, to reverse a downward trend that has seen L-Istrina collection totals drop for several successive years.  

In 2022, L-Istrina raised just over €5 million for the MCCFF – the lowest total since 2015 and significantly off the record €7 million raised during the 2018 edition. 

Donations can be made on the following numbers:

5190 2030 (call) - €50

5180 2012 (call) - €25

2126 2626 (call) - pledges

5061 9201 (SMS) - €11.65

7935 9565 - BOV mobile-to-mobile donation