Wow!! The “Badges of Hope” …. what an amazing 20 year celebration with our First Responder Community!!

We have so many people to thank in this community for making our celebration so wonderful!! A very special thank-you to all the families who purchased tickets over the week-end to join us in this very special celebration with our First Responders and the amazing RCMP Musical Ride! Thank-you for your generous contribution to Research!!!

A great big thank-you to all our “Partners in Hope” from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from across Canada as well as the members of the London Police Services, the London Fire Department, the Strathroy-Caradoc Police Services, the O.P.P., the Middlesex-London EMS, and Fanshawe College for their dedicated Volunteers! They all stepped forward once again with presentations and demonstrations to showcase their ongoing involvement in this community beyond their day to day services!

What can you say about the R.C.M.P. Musical Ride that has not already been said over and over as they perform around the world? We were thrilled and deeply honoured to have been selected to be the Non-Profit Host for performances in London. An amazing way to showcase the First Responder Volunteers that have worked so hard on our behalf! The RCMP Riders and support Staff were so professional and a pleasure to work with from the time they arrived with those beautiful horses to the time they sadly departed London with their fresh baked cookies from Lindey!!

We also want to thank all the folks at the Western Fair District …CEO Hugh Mitchell greeted our Foundation on day one of our planning session and introduced us to their amazing Teams….. including Agriculture Manager Cheron Chamberlain, Events Facilities Coordinator Bryan Chatten, Marketing & Sponsorship Manager Skye Nicholson-Smith and Raceway Marketing & Music Coordinator, Sarah Imrie… to name just a few! We would not have been able to manage this event without this wonderful facility and their extremely professional Team!!

Special thanks to our incredible, generous Corporate Sponsors….. our very generous Presenting Sponsor, Mr. Jeff McHardy and the London City Chrysler Team, our Gold Sponsor – Ford Keast, all our Silver Sponsors including C & V Income Tax Services, Scotiabank, @Print as well as Ticket Sponsors – Melchers Construction, DUO Building, Elgin Realty, Libro Credit Union as well as the London Police Association. A great big thank-you to McDonald’s Canada for sponsoring all the “delicious coffee breaks” every morning!!

Thanks to our great BHF Volunteers, the First Responder Teams, the Western Fair Groups, the Musical Ride Members, the amazing Silver Stars Precision Drill Riding Club from Windsor our Foundation was able to present two very, very professional days of celebration …. focusing on our 20 years of partnership in Research with the community of First Responders! We raised the bar significantly for awareness of rare diseases such as Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD), our Research Program, and our “Join the Team for 2018” Campaign … a Clinical Trial here in London, conducted by Dr. Tony Rupar of Western University.
We are extremely encouraged with the post contacts we have received following the week-end! We are also thrilled to be able to also earmark over $15,000 for the day to day Research at “Bethanys Hope Leukodystrophy Research Laboratory”!

Thank-you again for your very generous support of the “Badges of Hope”….. we have and continue to receive so many positive comments from all involved! It takes many hearts and hands to make an event such as this a success. We thank you for being a part of that. Your kindness will long be remembered. Together we continue to give hope to the children and their families struggling with Leukodystrophy. A Clinical Trial for MLD…. right here in London is on the horizon! All funds generated will go directly to support the cutting-edge Research at the “Bethanys Hope Leukodystrophy Research Laboratory” under the direction of Dr. Tony Rupar of Western University.