Summer of Rookie Rugby Wraps Up With A Bang
Three months ago the concept of how much time and work required to prepare for these festivals seemed very distant yet here we are, all wrapped up on our final Rookie Rugby Festival. After the second one held at Sunnybrook park, the bar was set much higher for the final one. With the expectation of over 400 kids attending, the interns put in one big push to finish off our last festival on a high note.
The day started off bright and early with many of the interns and volunteers arriving at the Birchmount location for 8:00 am. The benefits of having more than one festival allowed the TIRF interns to realize what was and was not working and making those adjustments at the second and third festival. This festival continued with the same concept of fun, learning, and safety, as the previous two but had its own style.
For starters, the organization for this festival allowed Saad Sheikh and Angela Du, the head interns organizing the festival alongside their Scarborough team, to set up multiple water stations around the stadium to avoid long lines and crowding. For the food service, camp counselors were to come and pick up boxes of pizza for their camps which made the process run much smoother. Thanks to CanBe Foods, the festival also had veggie samosas and spinach wraps to add a bit more flavour to the Scarborough festival. The final difference from the other festivals that required its own time was the dance off. After lunch ended, a 15-minute slot was allotted for kids, TIRF staff and interns, and camp counselors to work off that pizza and show their best moves. Kids were having a blast dancing to many songs from the “Cha Cha slide” and the “YMCA” to todays trendy dances with “Teach Me How to Dougie” and “Hit the Quan”.
Campers got to participate in activities such as the obstacle course, sponge race, and face painting, as well as rugby-orientated games like flag tag, flag rugby, and ultimate rugby. The day was a success and provided the educational and fun ending to a great summer for the kids. Thank you to all those for supporting and attending, have a great rest of the summer and see you next year at our annual festivals!
We would like to thank all our sponsors because without them, none of this would have been possible: Playing for Keeps, Pizza Pizza, Loblaws, Metro, CanBe Foods, Tim Hortons, Milestones, Shoeless Joe’s, Walmart, Kelsey’s, Food Basics, Rugby Ontario and Rugby Canada.
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