By Matthew Liebenberg
Twelve-year-old Kylie Stock of Swift Current will be combining her joy of singing and a desire to help others when she participates at TeleMiracle 48.
She successfully auditioned to be one of the performers from Saskatchewan during the 20-hour telethon and she is also raising funds for the event.
She is excited to be performing for the 48th edition of TeleMiracle, which takes place from Feb. 24 to 25.
“I really like TeleMiracle,” she said. “It’s a very good cause. … I like fundraising and just performing in general.”
She will be one of 75 performers from across Saskatchewan and the only one from Swift Current to share their talent with this year’s audience. She will be performing the song Long Live by Taylor Swift.
“I’ve always been a huge fan of Taylor Swift ever since I was little,” Stock said. “I just really like that song. It’s nice.”
This will be second time that she participates in TeleMiracle. She performed at TeleMiracle 47 in 2023 and also had a very successful fundraising effort. She exceeded her original goal of $1,000 and ended up raising $5,053.95.
“It was quite a surprise,” she said. “Once I hit $1,000, I was like ‘Oh, good’ and then I just kept going up. I was like ‘Wow!’”
She is hoping to have another successful fundraiser for this year’s TeleMiracle, because Nutrien has again agreed to match all donations raised by Saskatchewan performers up to $100,000.
The support from the school community at École Centennial School, where she is a student, was a great help.
“They’ve always been a supporter of TeleMiracle and I just kind of took the money, because Nutrien was going to double it,” she said.
She hopes to repeat last year’s fundraising success with the help of her school and the community. She has set up a fundraising page on the TeleMiracle website through which donations can be made to her campaign, which has a goal of $5,000.
Her parents are big TeleMiracle supporters. They have answered phones and her dad previously served on the Kinsmen Foundation board. She therefore watched the annual TeleMiracle broadcasts.
“I saw a girl my age performing and I thought ‘Why can’t I do that?’” she recalled. “So, I auditioned.”
She has been singing for as long as she can remember and is already a seasoned performer. Her first public performance happened at the age of seven, when she sang at the Lyric Theatre Youth Talent Night.
She emceed a Youth Talent Night in 2023. Other performances last year included singing at the Taking it to the Streets concert and at a fundraiser for the Lyric Theatre building renovation campaign.
She sang the national anthem at various events in recent years, including a provincial softball tournament as well as a Swift Current Broncos and Swift Current 57’s game.
Swift Current musician and music teacher Glenna Switzer accompanied Stock on keyboard for last year’s TeleMiracle performance and will be doing it again in 2024.
“She’s really good and we play pretty good together,” Stock said. “She helps me out if I ever need to perform with someone.”
Stock took music lessons with Switzer for several years, but she recently began taking lessons with a vocal coach.
“I sent her on to another teacher, because I felt I couldn’t teach her anything more,” Switzer said. “I wanted her to try singing classical music, things like Mozart, and I don’t teach that. She is so talented. I really wanted her to try that difficult stuff.”
Switzer has seen her former student’s development from a young age and her musical talent was already evident then.
“She was an amazing singer right from day one with a natural ability,” she said. “She has a huge range, and can sing low to high.”
She recalled that Stock was eager to begin performing at Youth Talent Night and it was an important part of her development as a performer.
“She just always wanted to go and participate in that,” Switzer said. “And so, between doing that and singing at Christmas concerts and stuff that we have, she has had a lot of experience singing in front of people for her age.”
She added that Youth Talent Night has been providing a safe and welcoming environment for young musicians to step onto the public stage.
Switzer previously played piano for a student who sang at TeleMiracle and she enjoys doing it again with Stock.
“It’s really rewarding when you help these kids and teach them,” she said. “I learned a lot of things the hard way in my life. That’s why I’m very passionate about helping young people and taking them to safe environments to sing and preparing them for bigger stages like TeleMiracle. I’m just so proud of them.”
Online donations to Stock’s TeleMiracle fundraising campaign can be made on her campaign site. It can be found online by doing a web search for Kylie’s TeleMiracle 48 Campaign or by searching for it on the TeleMiracle website (www.telemiracle.com).
