KidSport™ Tri-Cities is holding their much anticipated Annual Spring Used Sporting Goods Sale,

Presented by Westminster Savings:
Saturday, March 9th, from 10am until 2pm
2215 Reeve Street, Port Coquitlam

Admission is by donation or item for the food bank

If you or your family is in to sports, we will save you money! A huge variety of quality used sporting goods at incredible prices. Everything from bikes and hockey gear to fitness equipment and wetsuits and everything in between. You can outfit a child for hockey (including skates and a helmet) for $100. Lacrosse (including a stick and helmet) for $90. Plus, there’s no HST. All proceeds go to subsidize registration fees for kids from low income families.
To make this event a huge success KidSport™ needs equipment! Families are encouraged to donate and drop off their used sporting goods of any kind from February 27

Port Coquitlam Rec Centre
Port Moody Rec Centre
Poirier Sport and Leisure Complex
Thriftopolis – D-2579 Lougheed Hwy, Port Coquitlam

If you have used equipment taking up space in your garage or basement, this is a great opportunity to free up some space, donate the equipment (including bikes) and make a great contribution to our community. Please remember to also come by the sale for some amazing deals
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Chris Wilson,
KidSport™ Tri-Cities
Phone: 604-341-0241
Email: cwilson630@gmail.com
www.kidsporttricities.ca

Operation Red Nose was welcomed into New West and Burnaby like a baby to first-time parents. It was love at first sight.

In New West, 39 volunteers signed-up and 80 rides were given. In Burnaby, 41 volunteers got involved and 141 rides were given. “Support from the community was phenomenal”, said Coordinator, Chris Wilson. “We had the City of Burnaby take on a night with 16 volunteers, NWPD and their volunteers did a night with 22 volunteers, the Crime Watch volunteers were amazing and Metropolis at Metrotown came on as a major sponsor.”

The uptake of the service was even higher than expected. “We did 107 rides our first year operating in the Tri-Cities, so two hundred and twenty-one in Burnaby and New West the first year was just fantastic.”

Wilson attributes the success to a couple of factors. “The tougher drinking and driving laws have changed people’s behaviors to some extent. As well, when you have a service like this where volunteers will drive you and your car home and all donations go to KidSport™, there’s really no excuse to drink and drive.”

Ultimately, it’s the volunteers who are the backbone of the program. “Lori Combes from Burnaby Crime Watch and Shelley Cole from NWPD Crime Prevention were fabulous at getting some of their volunteers on board. We can’t thank them enough. We also had a lot of volunteers who weren’t attached to the police, but just wanted to make a difference and had heard it was a lot of fun.”

Final tallies for how much the KidSport™ Burnaby and New West chapters will be receiving are still to come, but Wilson figures they will each be meaningful. “There will be a lot of kids who will get to play a sport because of this.”

Anyone is interested in potentially volunteering for next year is asked to email orn@shaw.ca .

Operation Red Nose is a free, seasonal service organized by KidSport™ and the Rotary Club of Coquitlam Sunrise in partnership with ICBC that not only allows party-goers to get home safely but their vehicles too.

The service runs between 9:00pm and 3:00am for four weekends before Christmas and New Years Eve.

More information:

Chris Wilson, Coordinator, 604 341-0241

Coquitlam Metro Ford Soccer Club
Port Moody Soccer Club
Tri-City Youth Basketball Association
Tri-Cities Female Ice Hockey Association

This simple act has helped us raise over $6,000 last year.

We’d also like to thank the Port Moody Amateur Hockey Association for picking KidSport™ to share in the proceeds of two of their tournaments. All of the money these associations are contributing go right back to them in the form of registration grants.

Thanks to all who are helping us so that ALL Kids Can Play!

Saturday, August 18th from 10am until 2pm
Coquitlam Main Arena
Poirier Sport and Leisure Complex
633 Poirier Ave.
Admission is by donation or item for the food bank

If you or your family is in to sports, we will save you money! A huge variety of quality used sporting goods at incredible prices. Everything from bikes and hockey gear to fitness equipment and wetsuits and everything in between. You can outfit a child for hockey (including skates and a helmet) for $100. Lacrosse (including a stick and helmet) for $90. Plus, there’s no HST. All proceeds go to subsidize registration fees for kids from low income families.

To make this event a huge success KidSport™ needs equipment! Families are encouraged to donate and drop off their used sporting goods of any kind from August 4th – 17th at the following locations:

Port Coquitlam Rec Centre
Port Moody Rec Centre
Poirier Sport and Leisure Complex
Thriftopolis – D-2579 Lougheed Hwy, Port Coquitlam

As well, from July 4-Aug 15 in front of the offices at:
Centennial Secondary, 570 Poirier St. Coquitlam
Gleneagle Secondary, 1195 Lansdowne, Coquitlam

If you have used equipment taking up space in your garage or basement, this is a great opportunity to free up some space, donate the equipment (including bikes) and make a great contribution to our community. Please remember to also come by the sale for some amazing deals

Since 2006, thanks to the generous support of our sponsors and donors, KidSport™ Tri-Cities has helped over 1600 youth to participate in organized sport including more than 480 in 2011 alone. Our bi-annual used sporting goods sales are very important for us – putting quality used equipment in the hands of families and raising much needed funds to subsidize sport registration fees for families in need.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Chris Wilson, KidSport™ Tri-Cities
Phone: 604-341-0241
Email: cwilson630@gmail.com
www.kidsporttricities.ca

KidSport™BC has entered into an exciting three year partnership with Westminster Savings which will bring approximately $11,000 into the Tri-Cities every year for three years. Along with this, Westminster Savings will also be the presenting sponsor of our bi-annual Used Sporting Goods Sales. Thanks a lot Westminster Savings!

We had a very successful funspiel on November 26^th.  More than 70 curlers took part and lots of fun was had by all!  A huge thank you to the Coquitlam Curling Association and the City of Coquitlam for hosting it.  For pictures, visit Funspiel Pics.

The organizing committee for this year’s campaign would like to thank the volunteers and clients for their amazing support. It was a record year in all aspects. One of the really nice stats is that we surpassed our goal for number of volunteers for every night except one! As well, our average donation was up by $4 per ride. This has a lot to do with the great experience the volunteers provided the clients. The spirit on the teams was great and the friendly competition between teams to see who could do the most rides or bring in the most donations was awesome and really paid off.

Many of our volunteers stuck it out until after 4:00 am sometimes and drove to Maple Ridge five times in a night. Because of this, over 1,500 people got home safely this season. We’ll never know exactly what that might mean, but it’s safe to say we probably saved at least one life.

Our busiest night was New Years Eve and we had another record night – 16 teams, 102 rides, 2,421 kms, and $3,292.80 was raised. Our stats for the whole nine night campaign were 556 rides, 14,987 KM driven, 139 volunteers and $17,162 raised for KidSport.

Including sponsorships from the Boulevard Casino, The Gillnetter Pub and the John B pub along with a donation from the Chamber of Commerce’s Christmas Lunch, we should have raised over $22,000 for KidSport™ Tri-Cities this campaign.

This will ensure that more than 100 financially disadvantaged kids get a chance to play a season of sport this year. Again, just one more amazing result thanks to all our volunteers’hard work.

Westminster Savings employees and Miss Teen Coquitlam, Ana Evans, braved some pretty wet weather to promote and raise money for KidSport Tri-Cities.  Ana participated in the parade as well.  Thanks a lot to Coquitlam Chrysler for the use of a car and driver.  In the end, the BBQ raised $688.

The Inaugural ‘Up the Creek 10K Run’ was a huge success.  More than 200 runners took part in this ‘alternative to the Sun Run’.  Even the weather cooperated.  A huge Thank You to Bob Comartin from the City of Poco for thinking of KidSport and for all his continued great work!  We’ll see you all next year.

We had an amazing number of volunteers for both the set-up and the sale itself. Our set-up and clean-up was much faster and organized than ever. By 10:00am on the day of the sale, there was a line-up about 200 feet long and we had more than 1250 people come through (Lori had a counter!). It was our most efficient sale ever and… our most profitable.

After all expenses, we should end up raising almost $11,000! When we add in selling some of the better left-overs by consignment in the next few months at Corner Sports, 2276 Elgin Ave in Poco (Thanks a lot Jason), this figure could easily top $13,000. This will make a difference in the lives of at least 65 families.

Thank you very much to all of you who helped us out in so many ways. We’ve been so lucky to have assembled such a great team of supporters for this event. We truly believe it’s a great event for the community in so many ways and it only happens because of your support.