Folkhälsan, the NGO behind Finland's Lucia event last week, saw fundraising donations pour in at record levels, after this year's Lucia, Daniela Owusu, was targeted by thousands of racist messages.
News about the racist abuse directed at Owusu sparked condemnation from President Alexander Stubb and many others.
So far, Folkhälsan's Lucia fundraiser has garnered donations from around 20,000 people, amounting to nearly half a million euros as of Friday, according to the NGO's HR and development chief, Stina Heikkilä.
In past years the Lucia fundraiser usually draws in about 200,000 euros, while last year the total amounted to just over 156,000 euros, according to Heikkilä, who's responsible for Folkälsan's Lucia programme.
The majority of this year's donations arrived this week, and the collected funds had already reached last year's total by Monday. Daniela Owusu was officially crowned Lucia at Helsinki Cathedral a few days before that, on Friday 13 December.
The fundraiser is set to continue until 31 January 2025.
Funds for kids and families
The NGO will use the donations to help vulnerable families with children, with some of the funds going toward Folkhälsan's family camp for underprivileged families.
Heikkilä noted that many donors sent messages of support along with their money this year. They told the NGO that they support anti-racism efforts and specifically wanted to show their support for Daniela Owusu.
Given that this year's spike in donations reflected public backlash against racism, Svenska Yle asked Heikkilä whether the funds could be put towards anti-racism programmes or campaigns.
"Unfortunately, it's not possible to do that, because all forms of fundraising are done after receiving a permit from the police," she explained, adding that in order to get the permit, the organisation needed to specify how the raised funds would be used in advance.
But she said that the NGO would intensify its work against racism next year.
Heikkilä voiced hope that the backlash against racism in Finland does not end after this week.
"Today, I feel a great deal of pride in being Finnish. The backlash [against racism] seen on social media and the responses that Folkhälsan has seen — and that Daniela has also received — shows that the majority of people in Finland are against racism," she said.
"Now we just need to work even harder to make it a societal discussion that continues," she said.