Over 120 thousand volunteers, divided among 1,653 Collection Centres, are involved in this year’s Grand Finale. Learn about the unique hubs of local activity in Poland and abroad!
Helping is simple! Our volunteers are convinced of that as they keep busy fundraising worldwide today!
“This is our day! 1653 Collection Centres - truly magnificent. We cover every latitude with our polish Spirit, our smiles, and the joy that we oftentimes miss. This joy is what keeps us going today”
- said Jurek Owsiak as the 31st Grand Finale began.
Over a hundred thousand volunteers!
Out of our 1,653 Centres, 87 are located abroad in 25 different countries.
Together, we printed over 37 million heart stickers which went out to our volunteers around the globe.
Over 900 volunteers in Gdynia
The Collection Centre in Gdynia is this year's largest, with 904 volunteers fundraising on the streets of this beautiful coastal city.
Tarnów also does a great job! The city will have as many as 900 volunteers walking down the streets raising money for GOCC.
The third biggest Collection Centre is in Piotrków Trybunalski. This town, with a population of around 72 thousand, has 879 volunteers – approximately one for every 80 inhabitants.
Big hearts in small centres!
In Pomezia, Italy, a volunteer single-handedly leads a local Collection Centre, and many collection centres in Poland consist of only a few people.
Fun Facts about GOCC 31
Zbrachlin, Pierwoszyn, Pobłocie – these towns will join us for the first time ever!
The first Collection Centre ever in Rome has been created this year and is steadily raising money for our cause!
This year’s eldest volunteer – 96-year-old Anna Kusiak - fundraises in Corby, England, while the second-eldest 94-year-old Zdzisław Wielochowski supports the ZHP scout group centre in the Tarnów territory.
The youngest volunteer – Amelia Kopciuch – accompanies her parents in the Lubaczów Collection Centre. On the day of the Grand Finale, Amelia will be only 27 days old!
For the eighteenth time, Jurek Owsiak, this time from the final stage on the PGE Narodowy meadows in Warsaw, opened the joyful run under the same slogan "Get Even with Diabetes". Crowds of running enthusiasts, after a five-kilometre route through the streets of Warsaw, will reach the finish line located in the same place.
Five days before the 32nd Grand Finale of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, we visited the 'Pomnik - Centrum Zdrowia Dziecka' (Children's Memorial Health Institute) to ceremoniously inaugurate the first Ophthalmic Simulation Laboratory in Europe dedicated exclusively to the field of peadiatric ophthalmology.
Warsaw, Poland, the world! The enthusiasm which exploded in our country in 1993 has reached the most distant corners of the world in a flash. Already during the very first Grand Finale, we were present across the ocean!
