COMPASSION CHALLENGES
A different kind of amazing race
We’ve both dined on guinea pig in the Andes of Ecuador, and sipped goats’ blood in Kenya’s Maasai Mara. We’ve also navigated countless foreign metropolises with merely a grungy map and tattered phrase book. So when we watch The Amazing Race Canada, we envision ourselves as participants, eager to pass each cringe-inducing challenge and haggle over which one of us would draw the show’s assignment card to kiss a slimy cod, or bungee jump blindfolded into a cavernous ravine.
But where we’d really love to be is behind the camera, orchestrating what the audience and competing teams learn about this epically compassionate country. Given the chance, we’d create an entire new season of challenges that shine a spotlight on the countless community groups that exemplify the quintessential Canadian trait of kindness.
Here are six “compassion challenges” we’d love to see on the next season of The Amazing Race Canada:
BUSKING FOR BOOKS IN ST. JOHN’S
After smooching a fish at one of George St.’s famous pubs, Amazing Racers would mooch for charity.
Inspired by the city’s worldrenowned busker festival, participants would show off their talents to collect spare change from passersby — all to benefit Teachers on Wheels. The local initiative provides one-on-one literacy training for marginalized adults. Once teams raise $100 for this great cause, they move on to the next stage of the race.
BE A KIND SUPERHERO IN BRANTFORD.
Challengers would call home from the site where Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, and then we’d introduce them to another of Brantford’s best-known citizens, Captain Kindness.
For a decade, church pastor Dave Carrol has donned a mask and cape at public events and school presentations, asking residents to show compassion to each other. We’d like to see race participants immerse themselves in this small city’s caring culture, performing 10 random acts of kindness for strangers, before the spandex-clad Carrol gives them their next clue.
MEALS ON TWO WHEELS IN MONTREAL.
Participants cook up crepes on the cobblestone streets of the old city, and play delivery boy for Santropol Roulant, an inventive non-profit that runs a dinner program for seniors in need — by bicycle.
Armed with three addresses, three warm meals and a single map, our teams would take on Montreal’s bike-friendly roads, cycling against the clock to bring healthy food to hungry people before they confront the next challenge.
ABORIGINAL ENCOUNTERS IN WINNIPEG
After trying their hand assembling exquisite moccasins at the headquarters of the aboriginalowned enterprise, Manitobah Mukluks, racers then take the first step on a journey toward reconciliation with First Nations and Métis peoples: understanding their history.
Teams would visit the Indian and Métis Friendship Centre of Winnipeg, where they’d compete to collect answers to a quiz on aboriginal culture with the help of local elders.
CO-OPERATIVE HARVEST IN REGINA.
First stop is the historic site on Smith Street where farmers first gathered to operate their own grain elevators. Next, Amazing Racers would discover a new Regina food-sharing project, Fruit for Thought.
The non-profit organizes volunteers to pick surplus fruit from residents’ trees and divvy up their harvest among homeowners and local food banks. Teams would have to collect two full bushels of fruit before moving to the race’s next challenge.
SORTING CLOTHES TO HELP WOMEN IN VICTORIA
After a kayak adventure in the upper harbour and tracking down one of the world’s tallest totem poles in Beacon Hill Park, racers would pitch in to help local women in crisis get a new start at life.
The Women in Need Community Co-op runs three popular resale shops around Victoria that fund support programs. Racers would sort huge piles of incoming clothing, household items and furniture before making their last dash to the finish line.
Now that’s must-see TV — and inspiration for all of us to leave our own trail of compassion on our next amazing journeys in Canada.
Brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger founded a platform for social change that includes the international charity Free The Children, the social enterprise Me to We and the youth empowerment movement We Day.