Wagons for Wee Ones

Times Contributor

 

The Sutherland family put on the second annual Wagons for Wee Ones pancake breakfast and live auction Monday, Aug. 6 to raise money for the children’s charity Pace Kids. 

Pace Kids is a family focused program that helps with treatment of children with special needs. 

“The interesting thing about Pace Kids is you don’t really know about it at all until you have had a child that’s been affected with some sort of special needs,” said Misty Kolozetti, Fund Development and Marketing Director for Wagons for Wee Ones. “The amazing thing about [the Pace Kids] program is that we have essentially pediatric experts. We have some of the best speech pathologists and psychologists and physiotherapists and all the sort of resources that are offered to these children who are faced with multiple challenges.” 

Pace Kids has now celebrated its 17th anniversary and now provides services to over 120 children and their families. 

“That’s kind of the cool thing about Pace Kids,” said Kolozetti, “is that its resources (are) offered to anyone who needs it. We just wanted to make sure that it’s still kept that way with the fundraising dollars.” 

Wagons for Wee Ones was exceptionally successful this year with the live auction, raising $8,500 for the charity, $3,500 over their goal. 

But this event didn’t start out with the goal of being a fundraiser. Last year Kolozetti worked with the Make a Wish Foundation where the idea blossomed. 

“I was working with the Make a Wish Foundation and I just wanted to bring together the family of the Chuckwagon Association and the children’s charity, it wasn’t really for any fundraising initiative, it was more just to bring awareness to a children’s charity and give everybody a reason to come together,” said Kolozetti. Being immersed in the chuckwagon community growing up (her father is Kirk Sutherland) it was important that she connect the chuckwagon community to the communities they race in. 

“I wanted to take the passion of the community of the chuckwagon association and apply it to the broader community of where we’re racing,” said Kolozetti. Wagons for Wee Ones has decided to fundraise for a different children’s charity every year, and next year’s charity is yet to be decided. 

“The nice thing about having a children’s charity that impacts southern Alberta or even Strathmore specifically is it just resonates well with the local sponsors so we’ll probably look into something that has outreach to Strathmore and area,” she said. 

Kolozetti is hopeful for the future of this event, especially after the success in the past two years. 

“Everybody’s been liking coming together in the morning and hanging out for a bit. I think we’ll build on what we started this year and keep it pretty simple in concept and definitely do it every year, the response has been great,” said Kolozetti. “It’s nice to have a charity that a lot of people don’t know about because the $5,000 or $10,000 dramatically impacts the charities, like Pace Kids, quite a bit. It’s nice to have a little bit smaller scale charities,” said Kolozetti. If you’re interested in learning more about the charity Pace Kids visit their website, www.pacekids.ca or contact the Pace Kids office at 403-234-7876.