For the 36th time, the Rotary Club of Guelph Wellington’s famous “Got Duck” fundraiser delighted onlookers, prize winners and beneficiaries alike. This year's iconic duck race had a combined impact of $95,000. It’s an astonishing result for a small but mighty Rotary club of just nine members, bringing together their many years of duck race experience and tireless efforts.
This year’s result included $21,000 worth of prizes, $24,000 earned by the Guelph Minor Hockey Association for selling 5,000 duck tickets, and $50,000 donated to the Children’s Foundation of Guelph and Wellington in support of the food security program Keep Kids Fed At Home, formerly known as Food4Kids Guelph.
Check out the prizes and winners here.
The Grand Prize of $6,000 in Zehr’s gift cards was won by one of the 200 ducks generously purchased by Linamar to support this charitable event. Linamar immediately donated all the gift cards to the children’s food program for even greater impact.
The big splash of 6,100 rubber duckies took place at Riverside Park on August 25, on the Sunday of this year’s Rotary Ribfest which is run by a sister club, the Rotary Club of Guelph Trillium. The picture-perfect weather brought out record crowds with much excitement at the Speed River’s edge in cheering the spectacle of individually numbered yellow duckies racing to the finish line. Some ducks luckily caught a good current and surged ahead, while others meandered and bobbled together at the water’s edge. A catch-net was strung across the river in front of the first weir where waders stood ready to scoop up the winning ducks. Many bystanders then lent a hand in retrieving all the remaining ducks from the shallow water – almost as much fun as watching the race, said some.
It is the fourth year that this Guelph duck race has supported food security programming for local kids, “Because children are our future,” said Martin Van Dam, this year’s president of the Guelph Wellington Rotary club.
“We know that this fantastic food program currently supports about 500 local kids with food bags for weekends and grocery gift cards for their families during school holidays,” said Martin. “And we’ve learned that another 200 local kids need this support. We love this particular program because it was actually started six years ago by the four Rotary Clubs of Guelph working together, so it is close to our hearts, and we are determined to keep on helping to feed kids in our community.”
Donna Graham, a Rotarian and former chair of the board of Food4Kids Guelph, said, “We were overwhelmed with gratitude when we saw how much was being donated by this year’s Duck Race to this food program.”
“Ditto,” said Laurie Lantaigne, also a Rotarian and director of finance at the Children’s Foundation, accepting the cheque. “This incredible donation will allow us to enrol about 100 more kids to receive weekend food bags for this school year.”
Martin Van Dam had the last word. “Wait till you see how much bigger the Duck Race is going to be next year!”
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