McHappy Day

Today was another great day in the sunshine. We started in Port Hope today and visited the brand new Ganaraska Trail School which is made up of students from Howard Jordan and Central Public School. It was great to see some familiar faces. Once again our friend "Sunny" who is a cancer survivor herself came out to see the Pedal for Hope team, she is six years cancer free this year, we always look forward to "Sunny" greeting us, she hasn't missed a year yet!

Judy Malfara of the KPRDSB communication department came out and dyed her hair green, a great new look! We have two guest riders today Constable Grant Eastwood of the Peterborough Lakefield Community Police and Constable Russ Bates of the Peterborough County OPP we were happy to have them along for the day. As we left Port Hope we made the 32km journey to Bowmanville to visit St Joseph's School and Holy Family Elementary School.

St Joseph's in Bowmanville, what else can I say but WOW ! I was the co-pilot in the Peterborough Lakefield Police cruiser along with Constable John Townsend as my

pilot. We rounded the first corner of the school and were greeted by lots of children with posters and "high fives" for the riders, as we turned into the school there were even more children waiting for us with their posters encouraging us on. I got out of the cruiser to proceed into the school and much to my amazement there were more children lining the hallways cheering us on all the way into the gym. As the children proceeded into the gym they followed us chanting "Pedal for Hope". It felt like a heroes welcome. We shaved 44 heads and cut 7 ponytails, special mention to the young girl who donated her pony tail, it was the first hair cut she had received and she saved it just for us. It was a high energy assembly and we left there feeling energized. We then made the short journey to Holy Family Elementary School.

We had another heroes welcome at Holy Family School there were 600 kids awaiting our arrival. (Check out the video below). We had another high energy assembly including 11 head shaves and 4 pony tails donated. They did an awesome job of fundraising again this year, and to thank us they had some pizza waiting for us at the end. We had to rush away to get back to Peterborough for McHappy Day.

Thanks to everyone who came to McDonald's today for their patience as we help

ed serve their food, we hope you weren't in a hurry. I now have a new appreciation and respect for McDonald's staff, they can get all of the orders ready in a matter of seconds when I am still there wondering what the order was. Thanks to the staff as well for their patience with us.

Another fun filled day, looking forward to tomorrow.

Julie Levesque

Team Manager