Hey Guys and Gals,

I’m Corey Hamilton and I've been thinking lately about how fortunate we are as athletes to be able to do what we love everyday.  After the the earthquake in Haiti, I thought about donating some money to MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES (MSF).  It's a pretty cool organization that provides emergency relief in impoverished areas around the world, and they are playing a pretty important role in Haiti right now.  From what I understand, MSF is smaller than a lot of the big international charities, and it's also a lot more clear cut how they are spending donated funds.  

Rather than donating as an individual, I thought it would be cool if we could somehow all donate a bit of money together as a group representing canoers and kayakers in Canada.   I contacted a lady at donor relations with MSF, and she said that there was a way to do this.  The only way to do it online was to create an "event" on their website, and so I called it called Canadian Canoers and Kayakers.  If anyone of you are interested in donating a bit of money to this organization, it's really easy to do.  There is also a leader board on their website of the top donating teams.  The first place team is a little out of reach, at $90,000.  But the teams at the bottom of the top ten are all around $1,000.  I set a goal of raising $1,500 and if we reach that we could get on the board and other people will be able to see that our team has raised some money.  I want to get the white water team involved in this too, and I think that it would be pretty easy for us to surpass this amount.  Tom said that he would speak to AthletesCan and see about putting up a challenge to other sports teams in Canada.  I've spoken to Tom Hall (as our athletes' rep) about this, and he thinks it would be cool too.

Donating can be anonymous, so if anyone is uncomfortable with making a donation, they don't have to worry about being called out by their friends.  

So....if you would like to donate, here's what to do:

Go to msf.ca <http://msf.ca> 
Click on 'Donate' in the left hand column.
Click on 'Fundraise for MSF', again in the left hand column
Click on 'click here' in the second paragraph in the centre.
Click on 'Search for an event' under 'Supporters' at the bottom left.
Finally, search for "Canadian Canoers and Kayakers.
Then follow the steps.

If you know of anyone else who wants to donate, or if you can convince anyone to, direct them here too.  Please forward this to anyone at you club...the more the merrier.

Thanks,