Firefighters, police pay for evacuees to attend circus
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/05/2011 (5365 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Their lives in upheaval, flood evacuees got a chance for a little distraction on Saturday with free tickets to the Shrine Circus.
Evacuee Grant Vogt collected some tickets as a surprise for his five-year-old son, Teigan, and 10-year-old daughter, Mikhala.
The flood has forced father, son and daughter to leave their Assiniboine Avenue home. They’ve lived nearly two weeks in a city hotel room.
The circus provided a much-needed break from life at the hotel and the stress of being away from home.
"I think it’s great that they’re giving out tickets and helping out the families," said Vogt, whose situation is all the worse as he hasn’t been able to work lately due to medical reasons. "Today, we’re going to have a good time."
The circus was hosted by the Brandon and District Shrine Club, which also supplied the tickets to evacuees who could attend one of two shows yesterday at Westman Place.
The circus hopefully eased the stress on evacuated families, club member Bob Dennis said.
"Being out of your home, cooped up in a hotel room is not something that you really want to be happy with," Dennis said.
Tickets would usually cost $15 to $18 with proceeds from sales used to provide care for kids at Shriners hospitals.
So, the Brandon Firefighters Charity Fund and Brandon Police Association stepped up with a total of $1,000 to help cover the cost of making the tickets available for free.
"This is an opportunity to show that we do care about the community and we like to get involved and play a positive role in peoples’ lives," Brandon Police Association president Kevin Loewen said.
More than 300 tickets were available on a first-come, first-served basis yesterday at the evacuee Reception Centre at the Keystone Centre.
Police officers and firefighters started to hand them out at 10:30 a.m. and 30 evacuees snapped some up within five minutes.
In total, 153 tickets were given out.
Firefighter Shayne Collister hopes it made life a little easier for those who went.
"It kind of takes the kids’ minds off of what is going and maybe make it a little bit easier for them," Collister said.
