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As part of McLeish Orlando’s annual holiday giving, the firm recently hosted a charity benefit concert featuring pop singer Johnny Orlando, says Toronto critical injury lawyer Dale Orlando.
The Dec. 9 concert raised more than $21,000 for Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, a Toronto facility that supports children and youth living with disability, medical complexity, illness and injury.
“For the last five or six years, our firm has participated in a holiday charitable contribution. We started off giving turkeys to the Daily Bread Food Bank, which then morphed into a cash donation because the charity was able to stretch the money more efficiently.
“This year, we thought we could host a concert,” says Orlando, a founding partner with McLeish Orlando LLP and proud father of singer and songwriter Johnny Orlando.
He says the firm rented one of Toronto’s most historic performing venues, the Opera House, and sold tickets to friends of the firm to raise money for the pediatric rehab hospital.
“We picked Holland Bloorview because McLeish Orlando works on so many pediatric trauma cases — both brain injury and orthopedic/spine cases. We know how valuable the work that the good people at Holland Bloorview do so the firm wanted the concert to benefit children who have been traumatically injured,” Orlando says.
Fun event
Besides raising money for a great cause, he says the concert provided a fun event for friends of the firm to come together.
“As my son Johnny has gained some notoriety, lawyers, insurers and community health-care teams that we work with will say from time to time, ‘My son or daughter is a big Johnny fan, when’s he going to do a concert in Toronto?’ We thought this would be an interesting opportunity to put on a private show and make it something special for people who have some relationshipwith our firm.”
While Orlando says he is obviously biased, Johnny put on a fun show for the 650 attendees.
“It was a bit of a different audience for Johnny because there were more adults than he would typically see at a show,” he says. “There were certainly enough screaming fans and lots of energy.”
‘Big production’
He says some of the adults commented that they weren’t quite sure what to expect from a 15-year-old putting on a concert.
“It was a big production with a full band, a lighting package, CO2 cannons, streamers, and at one point we had a snowfall,” Orlando says. “We didn’t scrimp on production — it was a full and proper show, and everyone enjoyed themselves.”
He notes that his son graciously offered his service pro bono.
“That’s part of the giving back,” Orlando says. “I reminded him there are many things that mom and dad do for Johnny, so it’s nice for him to be able to do something that supports a cause that we believe in.”