The annual end-of-year fundraiser organised by Flemish broadcaster VRT ‘De Warmste Week’ (The Warmest Week) raised 8,907,834 euros this year. In all 5,609 separate fundraising activities were staged. The cash will go to 276 different projects fighting loneliness, the theme of this year’s edition.
This was the Warmest Week 2024 in figures. For 7 days, VRT hosts Sander Gillis, Kawtar Ehlalouch, Maureen Vanherberghen, Joris Brys and Fien Germijns presented radio shows and TV broadcasts from the ‘Warmest House’ in Bruges. In all there were 146 hours of radio and television.
All members of the public were able organise a fundraising activity to raise money for the 276 projects selected. This December almost 1,000 more activities were organised than last year: in all there were 5,609 activities.
Fundraisers who made it to Bruges could visit the ‘Warmest Village’ to explain their activity and hand over their cheque with the amount raised. For those for whom Bruges was too far, Francisco Schuster travelled through Flanders to support some of the various fundraisers.
You could support the ‘Warmest Week’ by donating money, by bearing witness on this year's theme of loneliness or by requesting a record and paying any amount for it: 10,510 people did so.
29 performers staged a free concert on the roof of the ‘Warmest House’ from where the broadcasts came. Over the week an estimated 165,000 visitors popped by at ‘t Zand, the enormous square in Bruges, where the Warmest Week was organised.