Laurier Lettermen donates $10,000

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(Photo by Ryan Hueglin)
(Photo by Ryan Hueglin)

Wilfrid Laurier Universityโ€™s Lettermen Club presented a $10,000 cheque to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation on Friday, following a successful PowderPuff tournament earlier this year.

The 24 registered teams raised the money with registration fees and donations, Laurier Lettermen president Brent Vandenberg explained.

โ€œThe tournament has consistently grown over the past five to ten years,โ€ he said, adding that the club didnโ€™t have a goal for the fundraising, but raised significantly more than last yearโ€™s donation of $7,000.

Former Lettermen president Andrew Barbati said the highest the club has raised was $11,000 in 2007.

The club, made up of male varsity athletes, does charity work around campus and within the community, including Kids Day โ€“ which was also held on Friday โ€“ hospital visits and โ€˜Reading with the Hawksโ€™, but their pride and joy is the yearly PowderPuff tournament.

โ€œItโ€™s a Laurier invention. The PowderPuff tournament has always been here, thereโ€™s a lot of schools now that are buying in and want to do their own,โ€ said Barbati. โ€œWeโ€™ve done a lot of work sending rules and field sizes out to places from Concordia, last year I sent them out to Ohio, Mac, U of T has a tournament now. Itโ€™s really cool to see something that is Laurier โ€ฆ itโ€™s something weโ€™re really proud of.โ€

According to Tanner Philp, the menโ€™s football representative with Laurier Lettermen, the tournament is a way to get athletes and non-athletes alike together raising money for a good cause. With a steady increase in teams from last year, the trend is clearly catching on.

โ€œItโ€™s something that everyone looks forward to, thereโ€™s a buzz around campus โ€ฆ itโ€™s just something that lifts up the whole campus,โ€ explained Barbati.

Cheryl Lewis-Thurab from Ontarioโ€™s chapter of the CBCF received the cheque for the second year in a row, and was enthusiastic about the partnership with Lettermen. Over 600 research grants to come up with more innovative treatments for breast cancer have been funded by donations.

โ€œPowderPuff is its own thing now, itโ€™s not ours. If we were to say we werenโ€™t doing it anymore weโ€™d be chased down with pitchforks,โ€ Barbati concluded.


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