“We were fearful that the shadow of last year’s unfortunate events would negatively affect the fund-raising marathon but it did not happen. What we did was genuine and people recognised that,” Fr Louis Mallia, director of the Centru Animazzjoni Missjunarja, said.

Fr Mallia was replying to questions from the press at a conference on the Ohloq Tbissima (Create a Smile) broadcasting marathon held at the home at the weekend.

Some clerics at the home were accused of paedophilia and are now being tried in court behind closed doors. “Unfortunately we were all thrown in the same basket,” he said, “which is unfair.”

He stressed that the home was not some monstrous establishment, as it had been depicted, saying that there was a lot of good being done there. “This was confirmed,” he said, “by the enthusiasm shown during the marathon by the children resident at the home,” he said, adding that this could not be shown on TV for obvious ethical reasons.

One of the marathon’s coordinators, Maria Bugeja, said that when the marathon was being planned the committee in charge did discuss the matter and decided to go ahead with plans so as not to let the incident destroy the positive work done by St Joseph Home.

The marathon was a success, breaking last year’s record by some Lm5,000 for a total collection of Lm73,107 – the final figure will be known next week after the collection is officially closed.

“The organisation of the event was never driven by the amount of money to be collected,” Fr Mallia stressed. “All those who donated money did so because they believed in the cause and not because there was any prize to be won.”

He said that some gifts were given occasionally to the contributors but this was given a low profile so as not to commercialise the event. “We even refrained from making some overly emotional video footage of the children who would benefit from the funds,” he said.

Fr Mallia thanked the public for their generosity as well as the over 200 volunteers. This number excluded public personalities who helped with the broadcast.

He thanked Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Opposition Leader Alfred Sant, both of whom actually manned the cameras during the first broadcast, saying that they undoubtedly gave a huge boost to the collection. The archbishop also tried his hand at operating the cameras the following day. He thanked the media for the coverage of the marathon on TV and the newspapers for the coverages preceding the event.

The main problem was preventing the volunteers from overworking themselves, he said. There was a great communal atmosphere, and many wanted to extend the marathon beyond 60 hours.

Regarding the funds collected, Fr Mallia said the money will be split equally among five beneficiaries – the home itself, and missions in Peru, Pakistan, the Philippines and Malta.

A container of food is also being sent to Peru. To transport the foodstuffs from the home to the shipping container, which was parked near the St Veneral roundabout, a human chain was between the home and the roundabout. Boxes with hampers were passed from one person to the next, under the beating sun on Sunday, to the container . The provisions being sent to Peru with the container are not part of the marathon collection but were partly donated by a food supplier.

As for distribution of the funds, Fr Mallia said about Lm9,000, which was given to the home directly, will be distributed shortly after the accounts are closed next week.

Phone donations will be sent in by Maltacom in two payments. “We hope that it does not take them as long as last year,” he said, complaining that the final payment had arrived shortly before the launch of this year’s marathon, after pressure made by the committee.