Hockey paves road to donations

Richard Loat is skipping across the country, playing his favourite game and scoring some big goals for several important social service agencies.

The Vancouver man has combined his loves of grassroots community building, sport and travel into one major effort called Five Hole for Food. The campaign will see Loat and his gear go on a nine-city road trip so that he can play road hockey as a way of drumming up publicity for the nation’s food banks.

Playing in Winnipeg today, he’s already stopped in MontrĂ©al, Ottawa and Toronto, with a visit to St. Albert planned on Tuesday.

“This is the road trip of a lifetime,” he said of his nationwide tour.

Loat wants the people of each city to provide all of the action. Anyone with a hockey stick can come out and play for free. Everyone who participates or watches is asked to bring donations, or make contributions through the event’s website.

Naturally, the more people that come out, the bigger and better the action will be, both on the field and in the donation bins.

“I was inspired by how Canadians were united by the 2010 Winter Olympics and saw an opportunity to use hockey for a good cause.”

All of the donations brought to the game will benefit the St. Albert Food Bank and Community Village. Executive director Suzan Krecsy was thrilled to get the surprise news about this event because it is coming at a critical time of the year for all food banks.

“We’re running out of things,” she stated, noting donations tend to drop dramatically once families start going on summer vacations.

“Historically, this is the lowest time of year for donations because the kids are out of school now. That happens across the board everywhere. St. Albert isn’t unique in that situation.”

Kreczy said it’s possible the road hockey event could become an annual fixture. “[Loat] said he just wanted to make sure that food banks got some help this year.”

When he’s not crossing the nation, Loat is a dedicated blogger. His online exploits helped spark the idea to approach people to donate. To keep that spirit alive, he is using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to broaden the horizons of communication with the public.