When I walked into the Where's Everybody office on Monday I found a noose hanging from

the ceiling in the studio. It had a note attached: “If you want to use this device, book your turn at reception. Thank you”. At our office, black humour as stress therapy is pretty normal practice. The surprise is not the noose but that no one has booked his turn yet.

Throughout the year, the small flat we inhabit in Strait Street – which was Ruzar Briffa's home for decades – is normally bursting at the seams with Bondiplus and Xarabank work. Yet when l-Istrina moves in and parks itself at the centre of everything, it's a different matter altogether. The already cramped Where's Everybody office begins to resemble a slightly deranged human chicken coup.

You find people you had never seen before working at your desk, using your computer and playing your CDs. You come to the office at six o'clock in the morning and it's buzzing with activity – everyone looking like extras from a remake of Dawn of the Living Dead. The kitchenette becomes a mini-Mghatab of pizza boxes, hamburger packages and chocolate bar wrappers. I could not even begin to describe the smells wafting out of the kitchenette. On certain days, you couldn't venture in there to make a cup of coffee without a gas mask.

And yet, beyond the stress, the junk food and the flaring tempers, it is a wonderful experience for all. It is a bug, a magical bug, and I see people of all ages and from all walks of life catch it year in year out. For all the cynicism and materialism of the life we live, perhaps because of it, there is something deeply satisfying, again magical, about doing your bit for those who need a helping hand.

This is a country with a built-in automatic device to create difference, pique and controversy out of thin air and about anything, from patron saints to politics. Strina goes completely against this grain and has now become an institution with a life of its own. It does not belong to anyone and at the same it belongs to everyone. It is an event everyone calls their own, one of the rare yearly occasions when we become a nation in the genuine sense of the word. It generates a sense of unity which is not trite or fake.

Work on Strina starts very early. Indeed, between the mop up operation and the planning for the next one, it is almost a year round affair. This year the number of people taking part in this massive operation is record breaking. Over 1500 will be manning the phone banks, the studio audience which will be rotated every two hours has reached 1500, a battalion of 200 volunteers will be helping us keep the entire thing together on the day… and 200 men and women from the worlds of entertainment, politics and the media have agreed to make complete fools of themselves to help raise funds.

This year, the circle grew even wider, or I should say younger. The Strina Piggy Bank Campaign brought school-children and students into the picture. Their enthusiasm and dedication were formidable and I must admit totally contagious. Watching those hundreds of children making a racket by rattling their piggy banks high above their mops of hair does more for everyone's morale than anything I can think of. And, as you will find out later on today, when l-Istrina kicks off at 11am on PBS, Malta's children and young teens delivered the goods.

We were obviously careful not to create a competitive feeling between the schools and, more importantly, between the kids themselves. The money collected from each classroom was poured into the big piggy banks to avoid rivalry. And no totals were kept for each school to avoid winners and losers at this level as well. With l-Istrina, everyone is a winner.

The Maltese business community have not only done their bit again this year. They have broken last year's record by a mile. They have donated over a quarter of a million liri worth of prizes to be won today, including a flat, nine cars, two boats, three kitchens and three pieces of jewellery worth Lm15,000, just to name a few. Per capita, I doubt whether there is another business community in the world which is as generous as ours. Without them, l-Istrina would simply not work.

So, everyone has played their part. The set up is in place, the volunteers are ready to go to work, the prizes are there to be won and the show is about to start at 11 o'clock this morning. The only thing that remains is you and your contribution. Please be generous.

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