The Huntsville Sting’s U13 Black team is well on its way to winning $100,000 for Food4Kids Muskoka.
Team Manager Sarah Roberts says the girls’ hockey team currently tops the national leaderboard of the Chevrolet Good Deeds Cup, where minor hockey teams can document acts of kindness to win prize money for the charity of their choice.
“A good deed can be anything done for anybody or anything that doesn’t benefit themselves,” explains Roberts. She says that could be something as simple as making sure you recycle, or something more involved such as pet-sitting.
“We love that our girls are not even really thinking about things anymore,” says Roberts. “They see some garbage in a parking lot, they just pick it up. If they’re going into a building, they hold the door for others without even saying ‘oh get the camera, here’s a good deed.’ They’re just doing it now.”
It’s not just the team that can get involved—Roberts says anyone in the community can document their own good deeds and submit them to count towards the team’s score. Pictures or videos of less than 60 seconds can be posted to a public social media account, sent to the team via its Facebook page or by emailing [email protected].
Roberts says to count, those posts need to tag both @4560 Huntsville Sting U13-Black and @Chevrolet, as well as include the hashtags #GoodDeedsCup and #contest.
“We have people in this community of Huntsville that do good deeds all the time,” says Roberts. ”It’s a small town full of wonderful people that volunteer their time, that just do good deeds overall. It’s a solid team effort to stay on top of that leaderboard, but so far we’re doing well.”
According to Roberts, the team chose Food4Kids Muskoka because of the impact they’ve had on the community. She says the organization now sends out 81 bags of food every week to children facing food insecurity.
“We thought they could really use a hand if we win, we like the idea of kids helping kids, and they are in all of our local schools right now,” says Roberts. “Great program to support, and the contest is just a way to do that. And to encourage kindness, acts of giving, and being selfless within our youngsters and our adults.”
The contest started in January and runs until March 3. Robert adds the team is quite optimistic about bringing home the $100,000 prize for Food4Kids.
“We didn’t really realize that we would be so high up on the leaderboard, but we thought that whatever happened, it would be a win for the community and for our teammates,” she says.