Barrie’s littlest artists could have a hand in creating some local sports history while also helping feed children in their community.
For the third year in a row, Real Canadian Superstore is partnering with the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) to offer its annual Jersey Design Contest, which rallies fans together to support their local teams and raise money for PC Children’s Charity.
The contest gives fans aged 16 or younger across Canada the opportunity to create a unique jersey design for a chance to see it worn by their team on game night. This year, 25 teams from the Ontario and Western hockey leagues are participating, including the Barrie Colts.
“This was an opportunity that the Real Canadian Superstore group saw … and there was a component in it to give back to local communities," said PC Children's Charity spokesperson Lisa Battistelli. "I was thrilled when I found out, especially since it’s a national partnership, which is amazing. It's engaging youth across the country with a contest that is just a beautiful and creative thing for them to be able to be a part of."
Proceeds from the program help feed kids from coast to coast, including here in Barrie.
From now until Oct. 31, fans aged 16 or younger are invited to upload their unique jersey design here for a chance to win.
The lucky winner will receive a signed custom jersey and a VIP game-night experience for them and their family, and the game-worn jerseys will be signed by players and auctioned off, with all proceeds going to support the PC Children’s Charity.
The jersey design contest is in its third iteration, said Tiffany Gordon, director of partnerships with the CHL. This type of partnership allows fans to not only celebrate their favourite teams in a fun and exciting way, it also helps them support a great charity, she said.
"It’s a really fun program … and fans seem to love it," Gordon said.
The purpose of the charity is to remove hunger as a barrier to Canadian children, Battistelli said.
“We want to ensure Canadian students are well fed, ready to learn and also we want to empower them with the skills to grow and cook," she added. "In Canada, it’s now one in four children under the age of 18 who are living in food insecure households so it’s very important.
“We know hunger can make it difficult for a child to concentrate, it can negatively affect their attendance, worsen learning outcomes … and without proper nutrition on a daily basis, children are experiencing 27 per cent higher levels of anxiety," Battistelli added. "It really is a shocking realization that in this big, beautiful country that this is happening.”
This school year, the charity’s Eat Well program is expecting to feed 17 per cent of all school aged children in Canada. Locally, the program is set up in nine schools and reaches 4,000 students.
To date, the event has raised more than $250,000, said Battistelli, while locally it collected just shy of $6,000 last year.
“We are looking forward to seeing what is going to happen this year,” she added. “We have a goal that we want to be feeding one million children by 2025 … (and) this year we reached just over 975,000 children across the entire country."
