A winning day at the Canary Derby 2009

Deer Lake Park, Burnaby, BC. Imagine a lush green lakeside park, with canoes, pedal
 boats and kayaks.  It is Saturday, the sun is out, there are children everywhere laughing and
playing. They are greeted by Super Mario, Princess Peach and WaLuigi, who are out to find coins for the Canary Foundation. 

They are not alone in this mad race.  Our team: Webnames.ca in our bright red t-shirts and car gave quite the competition, and it was all in really great fun.  Fearless Meryll and Mathieu raced our car to a third place finish, but in the end everybody won!  The main purpose was to raise money for early cancer detection, research and awareness.  The Vancouver Canary Derby raised $113,000 and the Victoria race netted $129,000, with 100% of the funds going directly to the cause. 

Webnames.ca was the top fundraiser for the second year in a row. Spearheaded by our COO, Cybele Negris, the team pulled together for a delicious and extremely successful bake sale. 

As for the race winners: Aquatic Informatics received the trophy for CanarySpeed.  They were so fast I never even saw them go by. 

The 6S Marketing – Team Mario Cart won the well deserved CanaryStyle Award.  And wow were they styling!  They even threw banana peels on the road.

Poor Team Cisco got the Bent Wheel award.  We all covered our eyes when his crash happened.  With his arm in a sling, he looked proud while he smiled. All in a day’s work for an amazing cause. 

Finally there was the Volunteer of Year Perpetual Trophy that went to Cybele.  She pulled so much together in a most elegant and fun way. 

It was nice to see old friends out like Wired Woman and the Big Green, and awesome to see new faces joining the crowd.  Everywhere was a splash of yellow t-shirts, as the volunteers ran around making sure everyone was attended to and safe.  I made a quick visit to the bouncy castle with my friends between races – no sign of Bowser which is always a good thing. 

With a lot of effort, from a lot of generous and dedicated people, we are certain to make headway in defeating our foe. 

You can find more information, photos, and even get involved right here on the Canary Derby website: http://www.canaryderby.com/

 

Photo credits:
1. Canary on tires: Emma Levine
2. Webnames.ca team: Andre Darche