Two Chilliwack charities benefited from the Battle of the Businesses softball tournament. The Chilliwack Chamber of Commerce held the one-day event Aug. 15, with 18 teams hitting the diamond at the Tzeachten Sports Field.
The winning team, Chilliwack’s Metric Civil Contractors Ltd., donated their $5,000 first place prize to Chilliwack Bowls of Hope Society. The non-profit provides food security programs and initiatives to children and families in Chilliwack and surrounding areas.
“Right now we’re making scones and muffins and sending out humus and veggies, and the money helps us significantly with having more of those items to send out,” said program manager Ted Kim. “Last year we had a budget of $15,000 for extras beyond soup, so this is like a third of that, which is amazing.
“Proteins have also become so much more expensive over the last couple of years, and so a donation like this just helps us so much to run our programs.”
Chris Veenstra works at Metric and sits on the Chilliwack Bowls of Hope Society’s board of directors.
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“It’s great to be able to give back to the community and have a team-building event for our staff,” he said. “Programs that help children in the community are quite easy to support. Bowls of Hope feeds around 900 kids a day and the need is growing. To support a charity that impacts that many children every day, a large number of people across the community benefit from it.”
Metric topped Salvation Army in the tournament final. Salvation Army was the lone non-profit to register its own team, and community partnerships coordinator Josh Draheim hoped they’d meet a business supporting Salvation Army in the championship game and guarantee themselves $7,500 much-needed dollars. As it is, he was thrilled that the Salvation Army team earned $2,500.
“The Chamber has such a great thing going here, bringing businesses from different areas and industries together in one place, all for a good cause,” Draheim said. “Chilliwack is so unique in that the non-profit charities are so collaborative and willing to work together. It’s competitive in the sense that everyone wants to win and have a good time, but there’s an underlining heart of it where we’re all in it together helping the community.
“What we have in Chilliwack is special.”
Draheim said the money will go to support several food security programs, including the Chilliwack Food Bank and a program called ‘The Pantry.’ Draheim said the food bank does around 1,200 hampers a month. Many are given to people who visit the food bank. Five hundred go to the Starfish Backpack Program in partnership with Chilliwack Community Services while another 300 go to non-profits like the Cyrus Centre, Wilma’s Transition Society and the Chilliwack Seniors Resource Society.
“Then there’s ‘The Pantry,’ which is a free grocery store for low income individuals and families to get produce and dairy and deli and baked goods,” Draheim said. “We’re seeing about 3,500 families per month accessing this program and we’re having trouble maintaining a food supply. A lot of this money will go towards purchasing food and supplies for those programs.”
Leanna Kemp, executive director of the Chilliwack Chamber of Commerce, said the Battle of the Businesses tournament was a win-win for everyone involved.
“This tournament is about connecting businesses to non-profits to help create relationships and educate the business community on the different charities in Chilliwack and the needs of the community they support,” Kemp said. “It’s also a great opportunity for businesses to have a fun, team/culture building day with staff and management, and it’s great to see the smiles on everyone’s faces knowing they are doing something fun for a really good cause, or in this case a few great causes.
“It’s also great to see how much the non-profits value these events for the relationships they help to create and build and to have them come out and support, offer to help, cheer on their team and all the rest. It really just is about community and being ‘better together.’
The Valley Huskers junior football team helped umpire some games and earned $500 for doing so. Umpires from the Jolly Miller Slo-Pitch League also helped out.
