BURK’S FALLS – “The community can be extremely proud,” is about the only thing organizer Pam Millar can say of the amount raised during the Caring for Cody fundraiser on Saturday.
The tallies are not yet complete as to how much money was raised during the six-hour fundraiser that packed the Burk’s Falls arena/community centre to maximum capacity from beginning to end.
But more importantly, says Millar, is that the person of honour, eight-year-old Cody Smith, had a great time.
“Cody was almost the last person out that night. From what I heard he could hardly sleep he was so pumped up,” Millar.
Cody, son of Derek and Donna Smith of Burk’s Falls, is battling a rare form of brain cancer he was diagnosed with in November of last year. He has undergone surgery for a tumor, aggressive radiation treatment and is now recovering.
Another organizer, Cody’s hockey coach Dave St. Onge, said he was overwhelmed by the outpouring from the area.
“It was certainly more than I thought was possible,” said St. Onge. “At 3 p.m. (when the doors opened) the place was packed. I was like, ‘wholly lifting.’ ”
Before the fundraiser even started, Millar and St. Onge said, the response from the community was tremendous with businesses either donating items for the silent auction or providing things like insurance, food and other key items.
The generosity carried on to ticket sales and sales of the Caring for Cody wristbands that sold out moments after the doors opened on Saturday.
“I know that we had 1,000 wristbands and they are completely gone. I had 1,300 tickets and they are completely gone. And when we ran out of tickets we just started marking ‘C’s on the backs of peoples hands because we didn’t want to turn anyone away,” said Millar. “My husband Alex estimates we easily had 1,300 to 1,400 people throughout the day.”
“At one point you looked upstairs (in the community centre hall) and it was completely full and you looked at the ice and it was completely full. It’s just a wonderful demonstration of how supportive this community is,” said Millar.
St. Onge says he had an early indication of the community’s response when he started selling tickets ahead of time last week and collected $2,300 in a few days along with, “another $700 in ‘Here ya go’ kinda money.”
The ‘here ya go’ spirit kept going even after the event when volunteers were at the community centre on Sunday cleaning up and people came to pick up their items from the silent auction.
“If people bid $100 on an item, they paid $200. . . The family was just speechless. Everyone who was involved in it was speechless,” said Millar.
That sort of generosity from auction item donors and the bidders resulted in a total of $8,000 raised from the silent auction alone.
It’s just one of many special moments generated throughout the afternoon, evening and night on Saturday that kept a smile on young Cody’s face.
Some of his biggest grins came during the hockey game between his own Almaguin Ice Devil novice squad taking on the Powassan Hawk novice team. To start the game Cody was presented with a special Ice Devil jersey with his name across the back and the captain’s C standing out on the front. Not able to play, Cody was at centre ice for a ceremonial puck drop where the Hawks presented him with an autographed jersey from their squad as well. Cody took his captain duties seriously and watched the action intently from the bench, making sure to high five all of his teammates after every score in their 8-3 victory.
“It was really neat to have that many people around to watch the kids play. It didn’t even faze them. They had a great time,” said St. Onge.
Another special moment for Cody was the drawing of the 50/50 draw tickets that had been sold by family friend Taylor Mehaffey. Cody drew the ticket, the winner came up and passed the nearly $1,000 purse to Cody.
Millar and St. Onge barely knew where to start when it came to thanking the many volunteers who made the event come off without a hitch.
“I have no idea how it happened,” said Millar of volunteer coordination. “We had a plan and we put it in motion and somehow they all made it happen.”
Money collected, before, during and even after Saturday has been tabulated, but there are still some expenses that need to be reconciled before the grand total can be announced.
Asked for an indication of what was brought in for the Smith family, Millar said, “Let me put it this way. When I originally had the idea I was hoping to raise $5,000 and we surpassed that. Then someone who was working with me said we should be able to raise $15,000 and we surpassed that. I really, really want to say what it is, but we’re not ready yet.”
She said she hopes to present a cheque to Derek and Donna Smith sometime in the next week.
“They were like, ‘Holy cow! Are you kidding?’ when I told them the preliminary number. But I don’t think the money matters as much to them as it does to us. (The money) is about all we can offer and they’ve got a little boy to think about.”