I tagged along with a race team from the Canadian Castrol Touring Car series today to attend a PR event at Sick Kids hospital in Toronto. The premise of the charity is that all the money the drivers win this year they are donating to Sick Kids. People can also go to the web site and make pledges for a dollar amount for how many laps get completed for each race. 100% of the money raised goes to Sick Kids. The administration of the charity funds is done entirely by volunteers and all race costs are covered by the the team owner and sponsors.
The drivers took some of their valuable track time today to spend time with the kids. They spent 4 hours at the hospital talking with the kids.. signing autographs, the crew chief even went into the reading room and read to a room full of kids as well as a live feed that went through the entire hospital for the kids that were too sick to make their way down.
The kids were incredible. It's so hard for me to relate the elation in their eyes as they got to sit in a real race car... to meet a real race car driver...to do something that they would normally never get the chance to do because a lot of them are terminal.
The shots will be posted on lapsforkids.ca once they set up their gallery but here's a sample of what I got to be a part of today.