Hi guys,
The launch of the 2012 Victoria Dragon Boat Festival was this morning. The paddlers pledge drive for the BC Cancer Foundation is now on. The BC Cancer Foundation is the fundraising arm of the BC Cancer Agency. According to a 2010 report in the Lancet, BC has some of the best cancer survival statistics in the world, due partly to the work of the BCCA and the support of the many people that fundraise for it.
If you're on the Island and would like to support cancer research and care on Vancouver Island (honestly though, it benefits all locations!) then you can go to the following link:
http://www.victoriadragonboat.com/EN/main/Charity/7545.htmlAll you need is one person from your team to go in and sign the team up, then you can invite the rest of the team to start up their own pages. It's totally easy, you can just email people you know to pledge you. The worst that can happen is they delete your email.
Last year we went from 3 fundraising teams to 8 (Paddlers of the Fifth Moon, Snappin' Dragons, Island Breaststrokers, Blazing Paddles, Chateau Bateau, Navy Dragon Anchors, Telus Horse Power and the VCKC Blue Herons) and raised almost $55,000. I'm hoping even more teams can get involved this year.
In the last 4 years around $372,000 has been raised for the BC Cancer Foundation between this drive, the sale of lanterns in the Lights of Courage campaign and in 50:50 draws and carnation tosses. Last year a total of $103,000 was raised so it's not inconceivable that if we get a few more teams involved that we can't raise $128,000 this year as a group to allow us to hit half a million dollars raised by the festival by August!
If you have participated before, we look forward to the challenge. If your team hasn't then please consider getting them involved. Really, all it takes is about 5min on the computer then a quick email. You'd be surprised at how much your crew can raise!
Thanks,
Katy Milne
Paddlers of the Fifth Moon/Snappin' Dragons
Trev and Joyce Deeley Research Centre, BC Cancer Agency
