PHOTO SUBMITTED Connelly Sherwick (left), Calvin MacPhail, Blaine Kunz, Mark Dumanowski and Brian Widmer of CIBC Wood Gundy in Medicine Hat pose with a giant cheque signifying the $150,000 their branch has donated to Medicine Hat and Redcliff's KidSport charity in the past 15 years.
Ask Liz Bachmeier what KidSport means to her family, and she can’t help but gush.
Her 13-year-old son Daniel – who has cerebral palsy – couldn’t do many of his activities without financial assistance.
“The smile on my son’s face says it all,” she says. “It’s very important, because without the help from KidSport Daniel wouldn’t have been able to go to camp.
“If I could donate, I would. What they do for the kids is absolutely awesome.”
But they can’t do it without donors. And on Wednesday, the local chapter celebrated its biggest backer with a monumental cheque presentation.
For the the 15th straight year, the CIBC Wood Gundy branch in town has come up with $10,000 as part of CIBC’s Miracle Day charity drive. That’s $150,000 since their commitment to local kids started way back in 2005.
“Since then it has been a growing relationship and we know that our donation really helps the kids who receive it and keeps many families active,” said CIBC’s Blaine Kunz. “KidSport is an organization that we are proud of and to be a part of their overall success in this community is amazing.”
The support is appreciated first and foremost by the kids, hundreds of whom get up to $300 a year in helping pay for sport registration. But the local KidSport chair, Connelly Sherwick, has worked at Wood Gundy for the last six years and gets to tell co-workers exactly what their donations have done.
“They can see first-hand the time and the results, and that certainly helps. I can’t be prouder of those guys,” said Sherwick, who like everyone with KidSport is a volunteer. “It allows us, because we’re 100 per cent volunteers, to get the funds out to the kids rather than volunteers spending their time trying to raise extra money. We can be a higher impact when you have key donors like this.”
Added Wood Gundy’s Brian Widmer, “We are all very happy to help local kids participate in their favourite sports and activities. Knowing that through our support of organizations like KidSport, many of these children have created long-term friendships, developed skills and learned valuable lessons is something we all feel fantastic about.”
Knowing there’s community support makes kids like Daniel and their families smile even wider. Local KidSport had to briefly reduce its per-child allocation a few years back to $200 per year, but it’s back up to $300 now, with 24 sports represented in 2018’s funding.
Most of Daniel’s funding goes to a camp run by Medicine Hat Adaptive Sport and Recreation.
“We’re able to implement his physio goals in with fun activities, so he didn’t realize that he was working on his physio having fun,” said Liz Bachmeier. “Anything, he’ll try it. My child has no fear.”
