What’s it feel like to get the hair ripped out of your armpit with a wax strip?
“It hurts,” said Matteo Ventura, a Grade 12 Reynolds secondary student and future UVic Vikes soccer player.
Ventura raised more than $250 towards the 2017 Cops for Cancer Tour de Rock campaign and was one of only two students to get his chest, and armpit, waxed, though dozens partook in the annual Reynolds head shave and leg wax fundraiser on Thursday.
Others raised more than $1,000, such as Grade 10 Kaitlin Cranston, who cleared $1,500 and Grade 11 Jacob Renyard, who raised $1,200.
It’s the peak of the Reynolds’ fundraising campaign for Tour de Rock, and the Saanich high school raised $51,395 this year, surpassing a total of $750,000 raised over 13 years.
Tour de Rock’s 1,000-kilometre ride wrapped up in Victoria on Friday. The Cops for Cancer Tour de Rock ride and campaign raised $1.2 million this year, and will benefit Camp Goodtimes in Maple Ridge.
Reynolds and Oak Bay High ($90,000 this year) are well known for their donations, but others are catching on.
Tour de Rock 2016 alumnus Mena Westhaver returned to lead the Tour de Rock riders into Spectrum Community School on Thursday, her alma mater.
“This is about winning, and we are winning the fight against cancer,” Westhaver announced to a packed Spectrum gymnasium.
Spectrum principal Rob House presented the team with a cheque for more than $18,000 but said it will likely crest $20,000.
“It’s only the second year [in the modern era] for us, I know Tour de Rock came here about 12 years ago but there was a big gap there,” said House, who helped establish Mount Douglas secondary’s Tour de Rock fundraising before moving to Spectrum. “And it’s been a special start with Westhaver, a Spectrum grad, and her youngest son Jack, a [Tour de Rock junior rider] cancer survivor here now too.”
Spectrum’s total has now reached $43,000 over two years.
“We’re still young and growing, we have students shaving their heads, almost two dozen,” House said. “That Reynolds level is what we’d like to get to eventually, but mind you, $20,000 is nothing to sneeze at.”
reporter@saanichnews.com
