It’s the highlight of the year for students at Strathcona High School — the bike-a-thon. Each year the fundraiser gets bigger and bigger, and on Saturday students broke the $500,000 mark.
“We have 1,200 participants in the bike-a-thon itself, which is an enormous amount. Then we have our entire staff and probably 100 to 150 alumni that come back to make it all happen,” explained teacher Tom Yonge.
Each year, the school chooses a charity to support with its 24-hour stationary bike ride.
“We’re partnered this year with Earth Group, which is a local organization started right here in Edmonton, and they’re partnered with the United Nations World Food Program,” Yonge explained.
“Our goal is to provide 1.1 million meals for children, to help them with their education.”
The students liked the idea of being able to help out locally, as well as globally.
“100,000 of those meals will go right to the Edmonton Food Bank, and the other 1,000,000+ meals, should we raise enough money, will be used by the United Nations World Food Program to provide food, water, and education programming in some of the world’s most impoverished areas.”
The bike-a-thon started Friday morning and wrapped up early Saturday with a big cheque presentation.
“We’re really excited to announce that we raised $518,000 — it’s kind of still a little bit surreal,” explained teacher Jane Grant.
As the total was announced, cheers rang out and students were hugging each other.
“The support we’ve got from Edmonton, Alberta, and actually even Canada and beyond has just been incredible. Every donation helps,” Yonge said.
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