Yellow ducks mark 20th anniversary

Hundreds of little yellow rubber ducks landed and floated down the Southside creek during the 20th annual Southwest Crisis Services Duck Derby.

"We were very pleased again this year. Everybody is always so supportive," explained Joyce Goodhand, Director of the Shelter.

"Over the last couple of years we have actually almost sold out, but this year we didn't come close to doing that but we are very pleased with the results."

Goodhand is not sure how many ducks were purchased, but not as many as years before.

"We own 3,000 of the little yellow ducks. If we sold out of course we would be close to that. This year I'm not too sure how many we still had left."

Four prizes were up for grabs with a special ticket and colored ducky that were new to the duck derby.

"The unique thing about this year is that it is our 20th anniversary so we had a special draw where we had the WestJet anywhere in Canada travel voucher that WestJet was really good about helping us with. We had colored ducks and we sold about 600 of those. We sold those out very quickly."

All funds raised from the Duck Derby go right back to the safe shelter.

"We use the money to supplement the cost that we use to operate our 24-hour crisis line. Even though we count on many terrific volunteers to do that, there is staff time and managing that program and also paying that phone bill."

For the past 20 years the Crisis Service has been putting on the Duck Derby. However of those 20 years the ducks didn't always belong to the organization.

"I know for years we actually rented ducks. They came down on the bus from Lumsden for a number of years. It wasn't until about eight years ago when we purchased our own."

To put on the Duck Derby takes a lot of manpower and time. The Crisis Services could not be happier with the Kiwanis members and the Innovation Credit Union.

"The Kiwanis members are very valuable. Every year there is no way we would be able to muster that many volunteers. The other interesting part is a lot of those members have done it probably for 20 years. They are very good at it, and they seem to have lots of fun. There is no way we could operate without them."

"We are also very grateful to the Innovation Credit Union folks. They are just terrific and are so well organized and they have so many things going on in the park. I think we like to think the duck derby might help them a little bit too, but everything they do to promote it, we couldn't thank them enough."

The winners of the 2008 Duck Derby are as followed:

1st place - Rider Giveaway - Pat McDougall

2nd place - Spa Treatment - Bonnie Faucher

3rd place - Winning Photograph - Barb Parchman

4th place - $200 Gift Certificate - Judy Larson

Green Tickets:

Trip for two in Canada anywhere WestJet flies - Winner Adele Getz.