BY KEITH LACEY
More than two months later, the people involved with the record-setting Shave for the Record cancer fundraiser are still smiling as the benefits from the event are finally being reaped.
At Monday’s Greater Sudbury Police Services Board meeting, big cheques were handed out to organizations who received funds from the April 8 event.
Almost 3,000 people showed up to cheer on family, friends and co-workers as Greater Sudbury set a new Guinness World Record for the number of people agreeing to have their heads shaved.
Insp. Dan Markiewich, one of the main organizers of the event, presented three separate cheques at Monday’s meeting.
A cheque was presented to Police Chief Ian Davidson, for his Greater Sudbury Police Chief’s Youth Initiative Fund in the amount of $68,000. A second cheque was presented to Gerry Lougheed Jr., chair of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine’s Bursary Campaign, in the amount of $50,000. The third and final cheque was presented to Maureen Lacroix, chair of the Northern Cancer Research Foundation, in the amount of $130,000. Along with this money, Inco also raised $70,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society. In total, the one-day Shave for the Record raised an impressive $340,000.
“It will be remembered as a historical day,” said Markiewich.
Dave Petryna, chair of the police services board, said the organization and dedication provided by so many is remarkable and is another shining example of why Greater Sudbury is a great community to live in.
The police service’s Collision Reporting Centre in Azilda is getting a good grade from the public.
The centre was opened in May 2005 as an alternative method to report minor motor vehicle collisions.
The benefit of the centre was that officers could spend more time responding to front-line calls, and less time at minor collision scenes.
People involved in minor collisions have 24 hours to report accidents at the collision centre.
The centre has now been in operation for one year and the response from the public and officers has been overwhelmingly positive, said Davidson.
Officers who work at the collision centre report the public is very pleased with the service, he said.
More than 2,300 collisions have been reported to the centre since it opened a year ago, way down from the 3,500 calls the police service received the year before from members of the public asking police to attend accident scenes.
