Good morning Eagle Family!!
Now that we have taken a big breath, from last week’s activities, we
want to give our Eagle family a huge shout out and congratulations on an
amazing Gift of Giving Back Campaign!
Wow, what a fantastic two days! Once again, our hockey family has given back to our community in an epic way - like no other club in Canada. With us, it's more than just hockey - our passion extends way beyond the ice when we come together. We are the Burlington Eagles Family - simple the BEST! Special, special thanks to you all, including our amazing Coaching staff, Executives, Convenors, and parents who made last week's two evenings possible.
Over the past months, we have seen you out in the community so much this Fall. So many different campaigns: many door-to-door food drive campaigns in neighbourhoods, standing outside of grocery stores with the TipTaps, collecting at the GO station, garage sales, bottle drives, and asking friends, family, and those at work to help them do something special! Every pound was important! It warmed our hearts to see everyone out there having fun!
Once again this year we were welcomed by the outstanding hospitality of the staff and students at M.M. Robinson. We have been welcomed with open arms and hearts right from our initial meeting - thank you to them! What a great school and partner! Next year we will be off to another school to help spread awareness.
All of this will go to our 9 beneficiaries: The Burlington Food Bank, Food for Life, the Salvation Army, the Compassion Society, the Carpenter Hospice, the Halton Women's Shelter, ROCK, the Halton Learning Foundation, and the Catholic Children's Foundation.
So many people and organizations working together for on great cause... helping those less fortunate in our community. Through all of this, our kids are learning the values of community, compassion, and teamwork. Many of you have told us about how your team has enjoyed this experience and how it has bonded your teams. Fantastic!
Don't underestimate how critical this is to our City and how important our kids' actions are. These donations are so incredibly important to our vulnerable citizens - to help them through a crisis - even for a couple of months - to help them pay their rent, to meet their hydro bills, to get their car fixed so they can go to work... without this generous gift many would lose their homes, be forced to live with others or even in vans, and tragically, families could fracture. It's so important that all our kids get an opportunity to thrive. It's what makes Burlington a great, safe place to raise our families in peace.
We can't thank you enough for your generous outpouring of generosity and kindness.
As Margaret Mead once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world." We would like to change that to honour you all and all the kids who have participated in making theor community better too: "Never doubt that a small group of kids can change the world."
And now the moment that you've been waiting for. Listed below are the tallies of the top three Eagles teams and partners. What we do is compete beyond belief! It's something far more important and deeper -
it's the humanity of it all mixed with a little competition. Words cannot describe how a triple gymnasium at a large high school in North Burlington has been transformed in a few hours to a sight that is "one of a kind" and filled to capacity with food for those less fortunate. ......Congratulations to the following teams.... So amazing!
(Some teams have donated food and others financial donations. With food now being valued at
$3.21 per pound (according to the latest Feed Ontario conversion), we have converted all donations to reflect the total monetary amount.)
Huge congrats to our top three finishing teams. They are:
| 1. |
U13 AAA |
Coach: Jason Pinizzotto |
Captains: Andrea Hollingsworth, Jennifer Boyko |
$164,390.75 |
| 2. |
U16 AAA |
Coach: Jeff Adams |
Captain: Shannon Martin |
$113,734.47 |
| 3. |
U9 Tier 2 Blue |
Coach: Mark Edwards |
Captains: Meaghan Longfield, Olivia Van Will |
$23,076.70 |
Our
Burlington Eagles teams raised a total equivalent to
$409,651.34 (We are amazing!) Our partners, the Burlington Barracudes brought in a total of $83,267.11 with other partners raising our grand total to:
$501,861.57 !!
NEW THIS YEAR - The Gift of Giving Back would like to encourage volunteers, coaches, and players to write a brief note on what this experience has meant to them. The subject matter is open to discussions on their understanding of making contributions to the community, their pride in helping others or related to the team building learned through the food drive. Notes describing these experiences will help us to spread the word and also reinforce once again on how this positive experience can be a life-enhancing and community building experience. Perhaps the team can do this together, with input from everyone. The closing date for submissions is December 10th - please send your letters to [email protected] - Prizes will be awarded to the top three contributing letters.
Once again, Eagles Family, thank you, thank you, thank you!! You always show your hearts and this year - you were just outstanding. We are grateful to each and every one of you.
(Link to Cogeco coverage - Have a look!
https://youtu.be/H8P2lJsYfHo)