Want to help set a world record?
Volunteers needed for ‘bra chain’
WOONSOCKET — A few days ago, Jennifer Jolicoeur dreamed she was standing alone in a field full of bras – all by herself.
And it was a nightmare. Because if that’s how things turn out at River’s Edge Recreational Complex next week, her bid to set a new Guinness Book of World Records benchmark for the longest bra chain in history will probably fall flat.
“People are starting to sign up,” says the founder of Athena’s Home Novelties. “Slowly but surely. We haven’t hit a hundred confirmed volunteers yet, so that’s making me a little nervous. We’re going to need 200 a day to pull this off.”
Jolicoeur has been raising money for breast cancer research since one of her sales representatives at Athena’s was diagnosed with breast cancer over a decade ago. Athena’s Cup – the bra chain competition – is her unique “romance products’” company’s latest effort to heighten awareness about breast cancer and raise money for research.
Jolicoeur has been collecting donated bras for Athena’s Cup since 2009. The whole effort is coming to fruition now because she’s satisfied she has assembled an amply sufficient quantity of undergarments to beat the standing record set in Australia in 2009.
Bolstered by a couple of recent bra drives promoted by Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, Athena’s collection is now nudging the 200,000 mark – enough to make a bra chain over 107 miles long, according to Jolicoeur. That’s nearly 35,000 more bras strung together to set the prevailing record.
I think this is an exciting endeavor and I give Jen a lot of credit for sticking to it all this years,” Baldelli-Hunt said. “Now she’s ready to break the record and I want to thank her. She’s doing this right here in Woonsocket and she did not have to do that.”
Jolicoeur believes it will take the better part of four 10hour days to hook together all the bras in the Athena’s collection. For the volunteers – affectionately known as “hookers” – it all begins Saturday, Oct. 5 at 8 a.m.
If all goes according to plan, the tipping point will come sometime the following Tuesday, at which point a judge from the Guinness Book of World Records is due to arrive to check the work and make sure it meets the guidelines for competition. Jolicoeur says the most important thing is that the bras are all hooked together. They don’t have to be unraveled end-on-end in a long string of bras stretching for miles. The plan is to pile them in concentric rings around one of the main play fields in the park, located off Davison Avenue.
While she’s still accepting donated bras, Jolicoeur already has enough to beat the Aussies. But a key to making it happen is hands: it’s going to be critical to assemble a healthy battalion of volunteers to hook their way to success over a period of several days.
Volunteers are urged to sign up ahead of time by downloading a form on Facebook. Visitors can find it by typing “The Athena’s Cup” into the search bar at the top of the page.
Even after the bras are all hooked together, Jolicoeur says help will be needed to unhook them and return them to storage. She says Athena’s plans to donate the bras any way it can after the competition is over.
She’s been exploring all sorts of uses for old bras, including donations to homeless shelters and one organization that uses the clasps to repair the shells of injured turtles.
“Nothing will go to waste,” she says. “We’re been reaching out to all different organizations to donate the bras themselves.”