Who am I?
My name is Marilynn Wykes.
~Born in Brockville
~Former user of TISS track facilities
~Sister to 2 TISS teachers
~Friend to several TISS teachers
~Admirer of TISS and its reputation for fostering athletic excellence in its students
~Head cheerleader, and blog writer, in the quest to get free money from the insurance company in the Aviva Community Fund Challenge
~Resident of Burlington, Ontario
Why do I do this if I'm not even a resident of the 1000 Islands Region? Because I think it's a worthy cause and a great legacy for the children of 1000 Islands Region. And besides, I'd do anything to help a cause my sister, a teacher at TISS, thinks is worthy!
The purpose of this blog is to get the word out about the Aviva Community Fund challenge and the participation of Thousand Islands Secondary School within this challenge.
The Aviva Community Fund was created by Aviva Insurance to help make a positive impact in Canadian communities - whether that's through providing new opportunities for at-risk youth, education, helping the environment, or cultural activities - by funding local and national initiatives for change. Each year, hundreds of groups from across Canada submit their ideas for community improvement to Aviva. The top 30 ideas with the most on-line voter support are then judged on specific criteria ranging from impact on the community to longevity and sustainability of the idea. A total of $1,000,000.00 will be awarded, in varying amounts ranging from $25,000 to $150,000, to the ideas ranked highest on that criteria list.
In June of 2012, the best Ontario high school track and field stars will congregate at Brockville's Thousand Islands Secondary School for the 2012 OFSAA Track & Field Meet. There will be 5000 athletes and their families attending this event over the 3 days in June. The current seating at the TISS track facility is inadequate and must be replaced before June. The new seating is expected to cost well over $200,000. The Friends of Thousand Islands Secondary School submitted the idea of Seats @ Meets to Aviva. Please click here to see the Seats @ Meets idea.
The Aviva Community Fund could provide up $150,000 for this project, and therefore ease the fundraising pressure on the community.
To make it as one of the 30 finalists to be in the running for this money, the Seats @ Meets idea must receive enough online votes from the community to show the community is also in support of this idea. During Round 1 voting, Seats @ Meets was able to make it to the Top 20, out of 400. Luckily, there are 3 rounds of voting. In Round 2, we missed the Semi-Finals by less than 100 votes and ended in 11th Place. We are now about to start voting in the 3rd qualifying round, November 14th - 30th. A Top 10 finish in this round will get us into the Finals and one step closer to the money needed for the new seating.
Edit - Dec.3/11
Seats @ Meets has made it to the Semi-Finals Round and the voting will begin at noon Monday December 5th and continue 'til December 16th, noon.
