Uwindsor student nets $25K for hospital equipment

A University of Windsor student's fledgling fundraising club sold enough popcorn in three weeks to donate $25,000 to Windsor Regional Hospital's pediatric unit.

Armaan Saini, who founded Uwindsor Med-assist Initiative, raised the money through a partnership selling What's Poppin' Popcorn to families at The Toy Box Early Childhood Learning Centre.

When Saini started the campaign, he was hoping to raise enough money to write a cheque for $5,000. “It was surprising,” said Saini, a third-year Uwindsor Biomedical Science student.

“There was a lot of work that went into it. I created this club in honour of my grandmother. She had Parkinson's disease.

“So it's a good feeling that we can raise all this money for a good cause, for the hospital, where they're going to be purchasing medical equipment for the pediatric section.”

Saini said he created the Uwindsor Med-assist Initiative in September to raise money for various organizations requiring medical equipment.

He recently came up with the daycare idea and reached out to Toy Box.

Once they were on board, he called up What's Poppin'. They were also supportive.

Funds were raised by distributing order forms to children at all four Toy Box locations to bring home to their parents.

The three-week campaign finished last week.

“This fundraiser skyrocketed,” said Saini, who was expecting total sales of $10,000 to $15,000.

“We basically sold $74,000 worth of popcorn.” The charity's cut of that is $25,000. Saini said that money will be used to buy medical equipment for Windsor Regional Hospital's paediatric unit.

Saini said he hopes his groups' efforts, and their success, will motivate others.

“We just want to represent Windsor-essex and our community, and I give inspiration to other people to fundraise just like us and give back to the community,” said Saini.