Event impact continues throughout the year

Jason Rivers
Special to Spur Ottawa

Arlington Woods Free Methodist Church and the Trend-Arlington Community Association hosted their 7th annual Bike Rodeo on Saturday, May 6, 2017. The bike rodeo is a free family event for the community meant to break down walls and reach out to the community.

“It’s such an upbeat, fun event,” says Paul Bloomfield, who volunteered at the popcorn station. “My wife and I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to serve the community. We love seeing the kids having so much family fun. And what beats free popcorn?”

Bloomfield sees the event as one of the highlights of the church’s calendar. He says it connects the church to the community and lets the community see some of the things that the church has to offer.

Because of the rain, the church had to adapt their plan, but they had a tremendous turnout. They set up a bouncy castle in the church’s fellowship hall, CHRI (Ottawa’s Christian radio station) had a booth with a DJ, and prizes including two bicycle giveaways.

“[City] Councillor Keith Egli had a table, Ecology Ottawa was giving away free saplings to homeowners, there was face painting, Lego activity tables, family movies, free popcorn, and all of our emergency responders were there (police, fire, and paramedics),” says organizer Ben Spears.

“We love seeing the kids having so much family fun.” Photo by David Villeneuve.

Altogether, Spears had about 60 volunteers running the different booths and helping to pull off the bike rodeo. One volunteer was Christine Yamazaki, who co-ordinated the team of face painters.

She says she likes that station because “it gives me the opportunity to meet young community kids and their parents. I also like to encourage and mentor our church pre-teens by giving them opportunities to serve and exercise their creative gifts.”

Yamazaki says the teen volunteers also had a blast, practicing painting their own faces and arms.

While all the activities were free, Arlington Woods also offered a barbeque and bake sale to raise money for struggling families. The church has developed a good relationship with the principals of two nearby schools: Knoxdale Public School and Greenbank Middle School. Last year they reached out to see if the schools had any needs they could fill. The principals shared that a number of students’ families are struggling to get by, so Arlington Woods offered to raise money to help out.

Yamazaki says the teen volunteers also had a blast, practicing painting their own faces and arms. Photo by David Villeneuve.

“The Bike Rodeo also provides the opportunity to bless our community in a tangible way as the money raised is given to our local schools’ benevolent fund,” explains Yamazaki. “Over the years, we have seen a good number of community kids attend our summer vacation Bible school programs because of contacts made from our community events.”

Spears says his favourite part of the event is knowing they are making a difference through these donations.

“Sometimes, when you give money, it’s hard to know where it is going, but with this event the principals get to see the direct impact.”

After last year’s event, he says it was “really touching to hear stories of parents crying and just being blown away—that’s just really cool and it’s neat to know that we’re being a part of that.”

All told, the fundraiser brought in more than $2,000 to provide students with hot lunches, help struggling families afford field trips, and even provide grocery gift cards for needy families. The church plans to present a cheque to the school principals in their Sunday service at the end of the month.