The Campbell River Ravens are snow shovelers extraordinaire.
During last week’s winter storms, the junior B lacrosse team members swooped to the rescue, clearing driveways across the city.
In exchange, they accepted donations that will go towards their travel costs for the upcoming season.
And while donations were very much appreciated, head coach Eric Brown said they weren’t necessary.
“We just took what people were willing to give us,” Brown said. “We did a couple without accepting payment, but most people were very generous.”
The team posted on Facebook that it was willing to help out and the response was overwhelming, Brown said: “Tons of people, we weren’t able to all of them but we kind of went on a first-come, first-serve basis.”
Eighteen players spent Thursday night and all day both Friday and Saturday shovelling snow.
Brown said the Ravens’ main motivation was to raise their profile in the community: “We are a junior B lacrosse team, so it’s the highest level of lacrosse played north of Nanaimo. We are working on just getting our name out in the community more, and letting people know that the sport is alive and well in North Vancouver Island, and try to get more people out to the games and increase community awareness that we are out there.”
Over the two-and-half days, the players helped people who would have had difficulty clearing the snow from their homes.
“One man was fresh off of surgery, he was a young guy but he just wasn’t able to do it because of his recovery,” Brown said. “And there were a few senior citizens, a couple of people with mobility needs, and they just wouldn’t be able to leave their driveway, if it wasn’t for someone to come and shovel,” Brown said. “It was nice for us to be able to make sure those people got out.”
Brown said they received a call from someone who asked for help in clearing his grandmother’s driveway in a townhome complex.
“We ended up doing about four or five driveways in there, just as we were there people were asking for help and we were able to help.”
Brown said the players went back to a few homes on three separate occasions to clear driveways, as the snow continued to pour down.
