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| Friday May 24 2013
Juneau: 51°F
Now in Digital HD on Ch. 5.1!
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Freda the Duck Frolics at Twin Lakes Published: 09/13/2012 12:00:00 Last Saturday wasn't particularly one of your more pleasant Juneau days weather wise; it was what many would consider to be a typical, "You wonder why we live here" drab rainy day where you just want to curl up indoors with a good book and a bowl of hot soup, it wasn't the best of days. It was however, a fabulous day to be a Duck! And not just any old duck thank you but indeed "Freda the Duck"; frolicking in the drizzle at Twin Lakes with five thousand of her closest friends, raising money for the charitable works of the Glacier Valley Rotary Club with their ten thousand dollar Duck Derby. Richard Burns, the President of the Club, provided us with details of the event. "The idea behind the Duck Derby is we have Freda the Duck, who's really the mascot of this whole event. She flies in with five thousand plus of her flock and we get to pick out five winners that are going to share in ten thousand dollars cash, the first prize, Five Grand. The event was really something the club started possibly about seven or eight years ago but we have had three years off where we haven't actually done an event so this year it's really a brand new event. We started from scratch; we're doing it at Twin Lakes this year as opposed to in previous years where we've done it at Riverside Rotary Park." And they did it up right; Freda's flock arrived in grand style with a little help from her friends at Coastal Helicopters. Once comfortably ensconced in their own protective pond, they had a chance to swim around for half an hour under watchful eyes who made sure none strayed too far. Then came the rescue of the winning ducks themselves; destined to bring a pocketful of cash to a lucky sponsor, each winning duck was in turn plucked from the lake by rescue swimmers from Capital City Fire and Rescue, then hurried away to reveal their secret number which connected them to their sponsors and ultimately the winners of the Derby. Now this is all well and good, it's a fun way to spend a rainy day outdoors and a lucky winner walks away with a pocketful of cash, but ultimately there's an underlying reason for this whole event. Mr. Burns went on to explain how it all helps the club's efforts, and what some of those efforts are. "The reason we do events like this is to really help our fundraising effort so we do a lot of really good stuff in the community, things like the Pillars of America Speaker Series, we do the 9/11 memorial at Riverside Rotary Park, youth exchange, local scholarships. So all the money we raise at events like this really goes to help those events continue." http://www.clubrunner.ca/Portal/Home.aspx?cid=912 By: Rik Pruett - rik@kath.tv |
