Umbrella had our second fundraiser last weekend and we need to take a few moments to acknowledge our gratitude for the support and generosity of many. Bear with us, the list is long, as it takes a community to pull off a hockey game.
Thanks to the Boston Bruins Alumni team. These guys never said no to anything I asked, they spent their own time visiting our recovery house chatting with our residents and staff and a couple of them gave their time to play golf to raise money for us. This team was a class act from start to finish. We are completely blown away by the generosity of these guys. A million thank you’s.
Thank you to our volunteers. There were many! Evan, Blake, Bree, Bronwyn, Conor and Kate, our hockey committee, spent many hours pulling this game together. On game day we had Kathy, Lesley, Louise, Nicole, Justin, Terry, Dottie, Kevin from the Grizzlies, our residents, our board and local firefighters spent the day helping with any and all tasks that needed to be done. Thank you to all of you – without all of your help this day would not have been successful.
To our sponsors; from our Gold sponsors Design Build, our Silver sponsors Mistral and Camosun College and our bronze sponsors Bin 4, Hecklers, Bear Mountain and Dads Soups & Sangys to our community partner the Victoria Grizzlies – all of your support was so appreciated! Thank you all!
Our media sponsor 100.3 The Q were outstanding. Tess and Chris spent Friday night and all Saturday with Umbrella helping to make sure the word was out and the event ran smooth. We couldn’t have done this without you guys. Thank you is not enough!
To Brian Bell from Langford Fire, thank you for all your help getting some of the details done, and getting a team of Firefighters together. They were excellent opponents! Even that Montreal Canadiens fan Blake!
Thank you to Al Ferraby who rocked both national anthems! You never say no when we ask and we are grateful.
Thank you to Mitzi Dean, Parliamentary Secretary, for joining us game day to drop the puck. You nailed it!!
How do we thank the amazing photographers from the day? Erin Ruff you were everywhere and captured so much of the day! Thank you for being so stealth and catching some really amazing moments! And to M2 Photography, this was your second time with us and your photos are awesome! You captured the action and we can’t wait to post your photos! Thanks for being there again!
To the mascots, we love you guys! Thank you for coming out and supporting our event, and the Pee Wee team that came out during the intermission. We hope you guys had a great time meeting the Bruins!
And we want to give a huge shout out to Saanich’s Boston Pizza! Andy and his team donated pizza for the Bruins and residents at our recovery house so that stories could be told and meals could be shared. Thank you Andy!
And additional thank you’s need to go to Devin from the Victoria Royals, Steve & Michelle Walker-Duncan, Steve from the Bruins, Don who bid on the golf game with Al & Bob, Gord who bid on the opportunity to play with the Bruins, my family for coming over the the Island for the game, everyone who bought silent auction items, 50/50 tickets and chuck-a-puck, all the great businesses that donated silent auction items and all the fans who came out to the game. We didn’t get the attendance we wanted but the people that were there were full of Bruins spirit and we all felt the love and support in the arena.
And finally, to our Board of Directors. They supported us through this crazy venture and then they volunteered all day to help with every aspect of the day. Thank you all!
With gratitude to all of you,
Sharlene
