On Thursday, August 2, Dairy Queen in Albany held a special event in order to raise money for the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Tennessee.

Dairy Queen owner Patrick Padron said his store has always donated to the Children’s Miracle Network charity, but he said this is the first year they have made it into an all day event.

“This was our first time making it into an event for the children of our community to come out and enjoy. Our inaugural Miracle Treat Day Carnival at Dairy Queen of Albany was all about raising money and bringing about awareness for a great cause,” Padron said. “In Clinton County alone, more than 1,200 people have been seen at this hospital. Last year alone they saw 380,000 people.”

Padron said for every Blizzard sold on Thursday, one dollar will be donated to the children’s hospital.

After the day was all said and done, Padron said $1,011.16 was raised for the children’s hospital.

The event started around 11 a.m. and was over at the close of business on Thursday.

Padron was extremely excited about the event and its success for the first year.

“It’s a good cause,” Padron said. “If you’ve ever known anyone who has been sick it helps out a lot.”

For the past month, Dairy Queen has been selling balloons to help raise money for the cause as well and had raised about $600 thus far.

“There has been a lot of people who came through everyday and gave a dollar,” Padron said. “We are just going to try and build on it. Our goal is to hit $2,000 and build on that every year.”

Regardless of being a small town, Clinton County historically has come together to support many events over the years.

“For me, and we are a small town, but it surprises me how generous people are, but really don’t have it to give. They are willing to give it and are willing to do more,” Padron said. “It makes me very proud to be living here. I love living here and I think for a lot of people you get a feel of a group effort of everything. If you have someone who is sick, you have people who get behind these auctions and benefits, if it’s a school thing then people get behind it and supports it to help them raise money for funding. I don’t mind a bit to do that and I appreciate everybody.”

Padron was extremely pleased with how Thursday turned out for the children and the amount of money he was able to raise for such a good cause.

“You can ask people for a dollar, it’s not hard when you say its for a kid,” Padron said. “This is not only for me, but for my employees. They love it. They learn how many kids are currently there and they get all these stories about kids who have been helped. It’s crazy.”

This type of fundraising is not just a Clinton County thing, Padron said all the stores across the country were helping raise money for a charity.

“There are 5,500 stores doing this and if Clinton County can send 1,400 or 2,000 dollars, it’s going to be massive,” Padron said. “We’ve got a lot of things going on today with the bouncy houses and my mom and dad came in, which my dad is a DJ and a school teacher so he is set up with music in the front. The fire department and the EMS is going to be here, along with the police department.”

Padron said this was the first year so many different things have been going on at once for this cause.

Dairy Queen owners Lindsey and Patrick Padron were handing out Blizzards Thursday to help raise money for the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. Dairy Queen raised $1,011.16 for the charity.