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Residents in B.C.’s wildfire zone raise cash for fire-ravaged northern Alberta

Community centre in Ashcroft donating proceeds from ParticipACTION walk to fire relief effort
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Community members in Ashcroft getting active as part of the annual Skip’s Run in 2015. (File photo)

A community centre in B.C.’s wildfire zone will lead a virtual walk to High Level, Alta. starting on Friday, May 31, as part of the cross-country ParticipACTION Community Better Challenge.

The challenge runs until June 16 and involves community members tracking their minutes of activity on the ParticipACTION app or online — anything from walking to hiking to gardening. At the end of the challenge, the most active community will win $150,000.

“I want to win this thing,” said Vicky Trill, executive director of the HUB community centre in Ashcroft.

READ MORE: Ashcroft-area wildfire leaves many homeless, evacuated, and under alert

In addition to logging minutes of activity on the app, Trill said the HUB is asking people in Ashcroft to record their kilometres.

This is because the HUB has created a challenge within the ParticipACTION challenge: to log the 1,469-kilometre distance from Ashcroft to High Level.

Trill said staff chose High Level “to help out with the fires.”

READ MORE: Growing wildfire prompts evacuation of High Level, Alta.

“When we had the fires here we had some random Good Samaritans come here,” she said, remembering two brothers who travelled from Vancouver Island and a family who made the trip from Fort McMurray to help.

“We’ll take collections during all of our classes during this challenge time … and we’ll put it all in our donation jar and when our community walks to High Level, Alberta we will send the money over to them.”

Trill said the distance is “quite a bit,” but she believes the community can log the kilometres to High Level and the number of minutes needed to be crowned “Canada’s Most Active Community.”

She said participants can either call the HUB at 250-453-9177 or email ashcrofthub@gmail.com to log their kilometres, and that the HUB will help log activity minutes for community members who do not want to use the ParticipACTION app.

“People are going to have to hoof it to get to High Level, but I think we can make it,” she said. “Maybe we’ll also create some fabulous habits that we should have created anyway.”

READ MORE: Beware the chair – it’s not your friend



editorial@accjournal.ca

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