CORNWALL – Big Brothers Big Sisters of Cornwall and District Executive Director Amanda Brisson admits they were nervous about reaching their $70,000 goal.
In the end, the 2015 edition of the Tim Hortons Big Brothers Big Sisters Bowl for Kids Sake raised $68,000.
“Leading into this we were really nervous because there’s just so many fundraisers happening and there were multiple fundraisers happening in the one weekend,” Brisson tells Cornwall Newswatch.
There were 200 teams and over 1,000 bowlers at Olympia Bowl on Saturday.
Chesterville’s event on Sunday added $5,600, which was part of the $68,000 total, but that money stays for programming in the North Dundas area.
“The energy was extremely high and it didn’t matter that it was snowing like crazy everyone still supported it, which was really great. Yesterday in Chesterville, it was even worse weather for people driving, but it didn’t matter, they raised over $5,000 in Chesterville yesterday. This is an unbelievable event – it’s heartwarming to know how much the community cares about us,” Brisson said.
Brisson says, even though they came up a little bit short, she doesn’t think it will affect Big Brothers Big Sisters programming in any way.
The money is used to allow the agency’s two case workers to conduct research and interviews to pair children with “bigs” – a term used to describe an adult mentor.
There are currently 114 children on a waiting list.
There are 70 “littles” already matched up.
Brisson says about 95 per cent of the money is already in and the fund raising event is open until the end of the month to collect the remaining pledges and allow other people to still donate to the cause. There’s also dozens of prizes to be given out in the last week of February.
“The big thing I always like to do is thank everybody in Cornwall because, sometimes we forget, almost 1,200 bowlers came out for this. And they’re not a business and they’re not a company making a donation. They’re an actual person out there that’s doing something great for our kids. It’s so important that we thank everybody that came out,” Brisson said.
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