Local team hits new heights at Easter Seals fundraiser
It’s no small feat to scale down the side of a building, but a group of local superheroes made it look easy when they rappelled over 250 feet down the Hill Tower Center in Regina in support of Easter Seals in Saskatchewan.
The Breakfast Club — comprised of Roxanne Shandera, Pamela Clothier, Abbas Ahmed, Mark Fenton, and Corey Csada — recently took to the ropes at the Drop Zone, an annual fundraiser for Easter Seals Canada that challenges people to embrace their inner superhero.
For part of the team, it wasn’t their first time hanging off a high-rise in a harness next to a friend. For the rest, it absolutely was and everything they heard about the exhilaration was true.
“I felt, very much, the excitement in the air and it was a good experience, and I can say my family also enjoyed the event,” said Ahmed. “I went down very slowly, enjoying that view of Regina’s downtown.”
The team raised almost $10,500 for Easter Seals programming in Saskatchewan, making them the top fundraising team of the event this year.
The group chose to spend their summer fundraising with bake sales, donation lunches, and even a ticket raffle to raise as much as they possibly could, alongside personally collecting from friends and family. The 15 Wing housing office helped sell the team’s baked goods and a number of people even stepped in to help keep the supply stocked.
The two 50-50 draws they held resulted in most of the total winnings being donated back to the Breakfast Club in a generous display. The team actually collected the last $2,000 of their total in the final week before the day of the rappel.
“We had no corporate sponsorship at all, which kind of made our ‘top team’ feel that much better. We worked all through the summer on this,” said Fenton. Drop Zone Regina saw 25 superheroes participate this year, to raise around $60,000 in total. All of that money will be put towards Easter Seals programming right here in the province.
The Breakfast Club’s efforts are the equivalent of at least six individuals getting to go to a camp program for the summer, which the group considered a heartwarming thought.
“That’s six smiling faces,” said Shandera. “And six families that are able to give their kids some normalcy, and a break, knowing they’re going to have the care. . . which I think is huge.”
The impact that this fundraiser makes for Easter Seals is the reason they encourage participants to dress up as their superhero of choice — because what they’re doing makes them a certain kind of superhero. For Shandera, she emphasized how committing to such a challenge and trusting a crew enough to hang off a building mirrors the challenges that people with disabilities face every day.
“I keep thinking about going over the edge, when you have to lean back and you have to feel supported, can you imagine. . . not being able to walk or move yourself, and you are trusting people to do that for you,” said Shandera. “So, I think it’s a really cool event for that, if you can wrap your head around that, if you can even wrap your head around that portion, it makes you go, ‘oh.’”
The cause is the main reason this group decided to get involved, and it is also why they plan on continuing on being involved in the Drop Zone in the future.
For Ahmed, he plans on scaling that highrise again. For Shandera and Fenton, they’d like to see more exposure for what they feel is a great event that deserves more popularity.
“Everyone should know about it,” said Shandera.
“I think people shy away from it more so because they think raising $1,500 is hard, and it’s actually not,” said Fenton. “If you sign up soon enough, it really isn’t.” The Drop Zone will return again next year, and the Breakfast Club encourages more Moose Javians to think about becoming a superhero for Easter Seals. “We had a lot of fun, doing the fundraising,” said Fenton. “And the rappel was fun. But overall, the satisfaction of supporting the cause [was a highlight].” Mark Fenton did his first descent in 2012, and chose this year to hover above downtown Regina dressed at Batman’s greatest nemesis, the Joker. (supplied)