Past and present members of the W.C. Miller Collegiate high school hockey teams in Altona came together on the ice recently in support of a good cause.
The high school’s Youth in Philanthropy group hosted an Aces alumni hockey fundraiser March 20 where the current Aces hockey team challenged the alumni from the 2017-2018 Aces Zone 4 hockey league championship team in an effort to raise funds for the YIP grant program.
Over $3,300 was raised that will be given back to the community through grants in the coming months. And because YIP is in a partnership with the Altona Community Foundation, a fund matching agreement will nearly double the impact of the money in the community.
The Aces alumni hockey fundraiser was an excellent example of how young people can partner with community members and area businesses to help support local organizations to directly assist families in the region through community grants, say organizers.
“Everybody really came together,” said Derek Wahl, vice principal of W.C. Miller Collegiate.
He noted one of the student council members came forward with the idea as a result of hearing about some informal games happening involving alumni, so there was the thought that it could be made into a fundraiser.
This one particular alumni group had been quite close, so it just seemed like a good fit, and Wahl suggested there was a sense that there was a common interest in wanting to come together as a community to support the community.
“We were able to make a bunch of things come together … student council was willing to do all the work,” he said, noting the students organized a 50/50 draw, raffle prizes, and a bake sale. Prizes were donated by a host of community businesses, such as Rhineland Car and Centennial Farm Supply, and the Altona Minor Hockey program partnered with school staff and students in running a canteen to help increase the profits earned.
“We had kind of an end of the year at the hockey rink, so Altona Minor Hockey sort of split the canteen proceeds with us, and we worked with the town on it,” said Wahl. “Everything just came together really well with the work of a number of different people involved, and it was also all the community members who came out because they heard about it.
“Kids were working together to raise money to give away … that was something that was really inspiring … there were a lot of things that came together.”
For the school staff, it felt especially good “being able to help the kids to do as opposed to us doing the work ourselves. It was really nice to give them the opportunity to do that work.”
Wahl sees potential for this to be an annual event.
“I think everyone feels there was enough fun and enough connections made that it’s something the students could build off of for the future.”
