McHappy Day

Busy day for the team today. We had our usual riding to do, visited 3 schools and than it was off to Peterborough to join in on McHappy Day.

Our day started off at 6am as usual, once on the bikes we rode into Grant Sine P.S where the students gave us a thunderous reception. We than left Cobourg behind and rode to Plainville P.S in Gores Landing. The students were excited to see us and waited in line for autographs, treating the team like rock stars. I always feel weird when a student comes up and hands me a piece of paper and a pencil and says "Can I get your autograph". Not too many people can say that happens to them every day. one of these times I am going to turn around and hand a piece of paper back to the kid and say "no, but I would love to have your autograph" These kids are and always will be the true heroes of the team.

Our next stop of the day was at South Monaghan P.S before packing up and heading back to Peterborough.

About 3 months ago the team received a great phone call from Angel Post, marketing & media relations director for McDonalds. She advised the team that Jamie Campbell, the local owner of 9 McDonalds franchises had decided that the 2009 McHappy Day campaign would be dedicated to Pedal For Hope. It goes without saying that the team was ecstatic to hear the news.

So the team headed back to Peterborough to help out at the local McDonalds restaurants. I use the term 'Help' out fairly loosely because when 13 team members converge on the store, helping out is not always accurate. Its more like chaos for the staff and customers. The teams guest appearance at three locations was not just standing around shaking hands and waving. We pretty much took over and worked our magic. The team had a great time making burgers, fries and ice cream deserts. We even had the Pedal For Hope bear causing havoc in the drive thru line.

I would like to send out a special thank you to Angel, Jamie, and the entire staff of the McDonalds corporation for dedicating this year to us and having so much patience while we were in their store.

John