A Push the Bus fundraiser at the Jerry McCaw Family Center in Sarnia brought in more than $2,000 Friday for a YMCA of Southwestern Ontario campaign to help send kids to day camp.
A total of eight teams paid an entry fee to take turns pushing a school bus the length of the centre’s drop-off lane while competing for the best time.
“It was thrown together kind of last minute,” said Paul Skuza, with the YMCA.
“We thought we’d end the campaign with a bang and we saw some really nice support with local teachers, firefighters, paramedics,” he said. “It was really cool.”
The event came as the YMCA of Southwestern Ontario was finishing its Fill the bus campaign to raise money across the region to provide weeks of summer day camp for families unable to afford the fee.
More than $12,000 was raised in Sarnia, including proceeds from Friday’s event, and the money will see “70 to 80 campers sponsored for a week of camp to come and have fun at the Y,” Skuza said.
Each team lined up behind a bus donated by Hull Bus Lines and pushed it several meters. The bus weighed 13.385 kg, plus the weight of a driver who rode inside to steer, stop it at the finish line and backed it up again for the next team.
After a team of teachers from the St. Clair Catholic District School Board tied with a team of day camp leaders in the first round, they had a push-off won by the camp leaders with a time of about 17 seconds.
“There were on fire,” Skuza said of the camp leaders.
Skuza said they had wanted to hold a team bus push event as part of the annual camp fundraising campaign for a few years but weren’t able to until now because of pandemic restrictions.
The Jerry McCaw Family Center has had about 130 day campers each week, plus there are several smaller sites nearby also running day camps for a total of about 200 campers a week across the Sarnia area, Skuza said.
The day camps run for nine weeks through the summer where kids “can just be healthy, social, get some activity in, get some fresh air, play some games,” he said.
“It’s a really important part, I think, of kids’ development” and the YMCA doesn’t want to see kids not have the opportunity to go to camp because of financial barriers, Skuza said.
“That’s why we sponsor as many as we can,” he said.
Each $150 raised through the Fill the Bus campaign sends one child to day camp for a week.
“Sarnia Jerry McCaw Center has been doing exceptionally well” and was the top branch for funds raised across the region, said Tracy Ranick, development officer for the YMCA of Southwestern Ontario.
As of Friday, the overall campaign had raised more than $50,000 across the region, which is enough to provide a week of camp for more than 300 campers, she said.
“We’re exceptionally grateful to all the donors,” Ranick said.