Shannon said the amount of money raised and growth seen would be great for any charity, but especially one from Utah.

"We had a lot of people who said it couldn't be done from Utah. They wanted us to move to Chicago, or to move to Los Angeles," he said.

"Not only have we done it from Salt Lake City, but for the most part we have done it with a lot of local talent. We went to Disneyland and produced our show, and they were so impressed with our crew that they hired them to do the Christmas parade," Shannon said.

"The interesting thing is as we went to Coke, Marriott, Disney and Wal-Mart, they wound up using Utah people in other aspects of their business. We created a lot of nice jobs," he said.

The network, in fact, has outgrown its current offices in Holladay. It says it added more than 40 jobs in the past two years as part of a five-year strategic plan calling for doubling its annual fundraising for hospitals.

Salt Lake City recently gave the network a low-cost $2.5 million loan to help renovate the old Alpine Bank building at 710 S. 200 West to serve as its new national headquarters. It has also applied for a $2 million grant through the Brownfields Economic Development initiative, and a $4 million loan to be secured by Salt Lake County's future Community Development Block Grant funds.

Shannon said the network's board almost moved it from Utah to Chicago when he retired in 2006. He said it chose to stay, however, when Hall was chosen to succeed him. Hall is a Utahn who had worked in the insurance industry, and who had served on the foundation's board of governors.

"I'm proud of what we have done here," Shannon said.

Marie Osmond, a co-founder, also said in a press release that when the network was formed, "We had no idea the impact it would have and the many lives we would touch with our work. We look forward to another 25 years of saving children's lives."

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com