Members of Paris Fire Station #1 and Airport Fire Station #2 will be taking to the ice to face off for a hockey fundraising game on Sunday, April 13, 2025.
The event, which is being held in support of Community Living Brant as well as the Paris Firefighters, will be held at the Brant Sports Complex in Paris at 3:30 p.m. on the Don Gurney rink.
Kevin Noseworthy, Administrative and Communications Assistant for Community Living Brant, said that while there is no admission price to attend, guests are more than welcome and encouraged to make a donation.
“We won’t have an admissions table or anything like that, but the firefighters’ spouses are going to be there doing a traditional boot drive so people can come and put in some donations,” he said. “Those funds will then go towards supporting Community Living, as well as the firefighters because they’ve got a number of projects that they support too. We’re also going to have a silent auction table set up and part of the proceeds from that will also go towards supporting Community Living as well.
Noseworthy also added that they’ll be collecting non-perishable food items to donate back to the Salvation Army’s food bank too.
He said that having had conversations with the firefighters, the match is set to be a good one.
“I was talking to Richard dela Rosa, he’s one of the firefighters, and he was mentioning that some of their firefighters actually have a lot of skills and that some of them played pretty near the professional level, so it should be quite the game,” said Noseworthy. “I think it’ll just be exciting and fun to watch. It’s great too because the firefighters always get the community involved and there’s a lot of hype around the events that they run, so I know we’re all looking forward to this and we’re just happy that they’ve chosen us and want to help support our cause.”
Community Living Brant is an organization that offers community-based supports and programming for just over 360 adults with developmental disabilities throughout the City of Brantford and the County of Brant
“We’ve got various programs that we run like LifeShare, Group Living, the Supported Employment program, and Community Support Services to name a few. We actually have over 250 staff that work for our agency now and we get to do a lot of great work,” said Noseworthy. “The funds from the event will mostly go to outreach support through our Pathways program, and that will help us provide various resources like food and necessities to people out in the community, as well as some other programs that are not funded by the ministry.”
He added that if anyone is interested in attending the game, they are more than welcome to show up a bit early to browse the silent auction table or to learn more about the non-profit organization before the puck drops at 3:30 p.m.
“We’ll have an information and resource table set up to promote some of our other upcoming events like our golf tournament as well, and it’s just a great chance to speak to some of the staff from Community Living and then grab yourself a really good seat for the game,” said Noseworthy. “I think it’s just going to be a lot of fun and we’ll have a few surprises for everyone too; I know we’re hoping to have a few mascots there so it should be a nice family-friendly event where people can come, meet some of the neighbours and just cheer on their local firefighters while supporting some great causes.”
The game was originally scheduled to take place on March 30 but has since been rescheduled to Sunday, April 13, 2025.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
