The St. Albert Minor Hockey Association Peewee Predators needs your vote. Make that votes.
People can click a button once a day to help the Predators climb to the top of the Chevrolet Good Deeds Cup national competition. The Internet contest has 13 teams from across the country pitted against each other in an altruistic show of force. The Predators are in the running because of their recent work to help out the Hope Mission along with other charities throughout the season.
The winning team will win the grand prize of $10,000 with half of it going to the charity of its choice and the other half going to its minor hockey association. The Predators have recently focused their charity efforts on the inner city organization, offering free meals and donated clothing to its clients.
"That's who we made all the sandwiches for."
Visit www.chevrolet.ca/hockey/power-of-play.html to vote. People can vote once in every 24-hour period up until Wed., Mar. 29 at 10 p.m. (MST). As of Friday morning, the team had racked up more than 14,000 votes, putting them in seventh place. The Lasalle Peewee A Jaguars of Ontario are over the 140,000 mark, leaving a firm challenge for all contenders to match or beat.
Rainbow on cloud 9
A Westlock-based NGO dedicated to sustainable development in Africa just raised more than $100,000 to help out its cause. A fundraising campaign that started in December ended with an event last Friday and all funds will go to provide clean drinking water to people living around Koka Reservoir and the construction of a high school in a remote northern region of Tigray, Ethiopia.
"We're super pleased with that with the economy the way it is," remarked Jason Seguin, a member of the board of directors of Rainbow for the Future. "What we're using that money for is to drill holes for water. The lake, there's three plants there and they're dumping stuff. That's all the water they have. As soon as that well is dug, it's not going to improve lives. It's going to save lives."
The organization also operates more than 200 growing projects across the country, including one in Westlock. The projects grow and sell crops to fund irrigation projects in the Afar region of Ethiopia. The Westlock project is one of the longest running in Canada and has fed over 400,000 people in Ethiopia on a sustained basis, helping them to become independent of food aid.
This marks a fine growth trend for the fundraiser as it brought in only $87,000 in 2016.
Seguin also owns the 1-800-GOT-JUNK franchise out of Edmonton and is planning a fundraising garage sale in the summer. Details on that will follow.
Details can be found at www.rainbowftf.ngo.
