Beating sun, blasting music, a day of sport, a good cause and an impromptu cartwheel competition – it was all part of Saturday’s motionball Marathon of Sport to benefit the Special Olympics Canada.
Now don’t you wish you signed up a team?
Team Notable woke up bright and early on Saturday, shook off Friday night’s red wine, and headed north to the Hangar at Downsview Park. There, we joined 600 fellow young professionals for a day of team building and athletics that reminded us that our bodies weren’t quite what they once were. But we had fun and got some great team pyramid pictures…
After a few opening words from the Etherington brothers, the day kicked off what was quite literally a marathon of sport. Sports included soccer, basketball, bench ball, ultimate Frisbee and flag football. Each team was assigned a Special Olympic athlete or two, offering a chance to get to know and interact directly with those whom the cause supports.
Upon arrival, participants were given Under Armour t-shirts to wear in an assortment of colours, along with motionball baseball caps. Interesting fact: outfits were made complete by neon Nike runners, which seemed to don the feet of 95 per cent of athletes.
Aside from the sports (which got quite competitive at times), other highlights included mid-afternoon Freezies, on-site massages, Yoghurty’s and Beaver Tails food trucks, and a candy station that you could access once you signed up for the Yellow Card Campaign.
Like we saw at motionball’s Toronto and Calgary galas earlier this year, the Marathon of Sport featured an interactive Yellow Card campaign station, encouraging participants to sign up to eliminate the use of the ‘r word’.
After everyone went home to shower and pretty up, participants headed to Speak Easy 21 for a special prix-fix dinner, some of their flowing signature cocktails and live acoustic music from last year’s Grey Goose Notable Jesse Labelle. As much as it is a marathon of sport, it is also a marathon of drink, as Etherington reminded the crowd earlier in the day.
For those still in the dark (though we don’t know how you could be since we talk about it so often), motionball is a non-profit organization started by Toronto YP Paul Etherington that benefits the Special Olympics Canada Foundation (SOCF) through a series of nationwide sporting and social events, including the motionball galas that we YPs know and love. Though most associate the motionball name solely with the annual hot-ticket galas that take place in Toronto and Calgary, a major fundraising component to motionball is its Marathon of Sport series, which is actually the charity’s flagship event.
Marathon of Sport raises almost as much as the motionball galas; the Toronto event raised a total of $215,000 net for the Special Olympics Canada Foundation.
The top 5 fundraising teams were:
Etherington Generations: $20,310
CI Investments: $9,940
Flea Circus: $8,751
AIR MILES 3: $8,270
Etherington Express: $7,881
#LYNL | (Live Your Notable Life)
Cover image by: Patrick Thompson
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