Players with the Estevan Junior Coaler Rollers roller derby team pushed themselves to the limit at the club’s annual Skate-a-thon fundraiser last Friday at the Bienfait Memorial Arena, but they only needed to look at the smiling faces that greeted them afterwards to understand the hard work was well worth it.
After being divided into two groups, one collection of Coaler Rollers skaters raced around their taped-in track for 30 minutes straight with the other members marking down the amount of laps they had completed while continually cheering them on. Once the first group of Coaler Rollers completed the task and skated off to the sidelines drenched in sweat and gasping for air their teammates jumped in to take on the challenge.
Lorelei Lachambre, coach of the Coaler Rollers, said the annual Skate-a-thon fundraiser raises money to help keep junior roller derby registration costs low. She said they also donate a portion of the money raised to Jumpstart, a Canadian Tire charity that helps kids participate in sports through lending a financial hand with registration, equipment and transportation costs.
“We give 10 per cent of whatever we raise tonight to Jumpstart,” said Lachambre, noting their goal was to collect $2,500 in pledges. “The reason why we chose Jumpstart as the people that we wanted to support was because we have a third of our skaters (who) actually access Jumpstart funding.”
Lachambre said this is the second year they’ve held a Skate-a-thon as their major fundraising event. She said renting out a rink for practices, their annual home tournament on May 7 and 8 and their season wind-up event in late June is their major expense, so the money raised on Friday will go towards offsetting that cost.
“This was the most fun that we could all have together participating while we’re working on actual skating skills,” she said. “It’s a great way to start our season because we’re building up our endurance, so we thought that was the best of both worlds. Skate, build up your endurance, but still collect pledges and collect money.”
The Coaler Rollers annual home tournament on Mother’s Day weekend will feature up to nine teams battling it out on the roller derby track at the Bienfait Memorial Arena. Lachambre said their tournament is the only junior roller derby tournament in Saskatchewan, so they and the coming competition are pumped up for it and can’t wait to get their season started.
