Carnival Cruise Line has broken its own annual fundraising record for donations to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, with more than $3.5 million (USD) donated to the popular charity in 2022.
This surpasses the previous record of the cruise line’s donations, and is largely credited to the success of the new Carnival Celebration‘s debut as well as other fundraising efforts.
Record-Breading Annual Donations to St. Jude
Throughout 2022, Carnival Cruise Line raised an astonishing total of $3.5 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which the cruise line has partnered with since 2010. This surpasses the 2018 total of $2.8 million, and showcases the incredible generosity of Carnival’s guests.
“These results are proof that Carnival Cruise Line has the most giving guests and the most caring crew in the world who join together in our commitment to St. Jude’s lifesaving mission to find cures for childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases,” said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line and member of the St. Jude Professional Advisory Board.
Throughout the year, Carnival organizes a variety of popular events to raise money for the worthwhile and notable charity. Onboard, the “Groove for St. Jude” poolside dance party is always a hit, as is the Build-A-Bear Workshop at Sea, where kids can create their own St. Jude-themed keepsake bear. In 2022, the cruise line sold more than 100,000 St. Jude Groove shirts and more than 27,000 St. Jude bears.
Special 2022 Fundraising Events
It isn’t just the regular events onboard every Carnival cruise that raise money for St. Jude, however. In 2022, the cruise line began to use more land-based fundraisers, including Agentpalooza events in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, and Charlotte. At each stop, travel advisors were invited to donate to St. Jude and in total raised an additional $60,000.
The debut of Carnival Celebration in November 2022 also encouraged guests to donate more to the charity, and 30% of the year’s cash collections were made during the new ship’s maiden voyage month. This helped give the cruise line its highest fourth quarter of donations ever, with more than $1 million raised in the last three months of the year.
Another special fundraiser during 2022 was a special, one-time auction on the final voyage of Carnival Ecstasy, which raised $39,000 by auctioning off various memorabilia, including the remains of the champagne bottle used to christen the ship, several inaugural port of call plaques, a signed flag, and more.
Fundraising to Continue
Carnival Cruise Line is not slowing down its fundraising efforts in any way, and is dedicated to continuing its partnership with St. Jude.
“As the cruise line that serves more children and families than any other, we are proud to have a long-standing partnership with St. Jude as we work to reach our goal of raising $33 million for St. Jude by 2025,” said Duffy.
To date, Carnival has raised $26.2 million raised since the partnership began in 2010. This means that just $3.4 needs to be raised in both 2023 and 2024 to meet the cruise line’s goal of $33 million in 15 years.
With three new ships slated to join the Carnival fleet before that goal’s deadline – Carnival Jubilee will debut in December 2023, and both Carnival Venezia and Carnival Firenze will join the “Carnival Fun, Italian Style” initiative in 2023 and 2024, respectively – even more onboard fundraising is sure to be successful.
With ongoing dance parties and new land-based fundraisers, as well as the ongoing generosity of guests aboard all Carnival ships, the cruise line is sure to meet, even surpass, that amazing goal that will do so much to help sick children and their families.
