Mrs. Bea Crowley, chairperson for the Cystic Fibrosis London Chapter alongside a very sizeable group of charity volunteers is ecstatic at the overall outcome of the 2nd Annual Paintball Charity event for Cystic Fibrosis called The Promised Land II. Many of the charities volunteers came out for the day completely unaware of what a paintball event such as this was really all about. They learned all about the generosity of the paintball community and the power of paintball. The charity volunteers were amazed at how well organized the event itself went.
Historically speaking Mr. Garnet McCarty first approached Flagswipe Paintball and General Manager Shawn Henderson in late 2007 in regards to the idea of hosting an event for Cystic Fibrosis. The idea was embraced and soon an Ontario paintball players organization called the Great Lakes Coalition Forces were brought on board to help with such things as creating a big game and promoting it to the paintball community. That first year saw the paintball community raise $10000 for the charity.
The 2nd annual event taking place June 20th 2009 was created, promoted and implemented with the assistance of one of Flagswipes sponsored teams The Glen Morris Mercenaries. One of the event organizers Tom Tomcatâ Cunningham is quick to mention the assistance of other Flagswipe sponsored teams including BlackOps, Shadow Squad and Team OpFor all of whom proved invaluable to the monumental task organizing an event such as this involves. Many more paintball players stepped forward over and above the sponsored teams to volunteer their time to help officiate and insure the event a success overall.
Another positive aspect of the 2nd Annual event was the six Cystic Fibrosis patients who rarely have opportunity to participate in most fund raising efforts. The group enjoyed the game in its entirety.
Huge thanks to all of the sponsors for this years event including Flagswipe Paintball, West 49, Mario Sama of Pure Excess Industries, makers of fine marker lubes, John Amodea of X3 Paintball Magazine, H&H Paintball with a very generous donation, Monker of Monkhouse Website Hosting, Kee Action Sports, Hully Gully for supplying the Rhino used to ferry the charities gear and transport the Cystic Fibrosis patients to their vehicles and back. Sarah B of FM96 Rock Radio was on hand during the day doing Live to Air radio. Last but not least The Milsim Empire, Promised Land II was the first ever Milsim Empire sanctioned event in Canada and needless to say it was great to have them aboard again this year.
Huge thanks to all the volunteers who helped to make this happen…numbering around 27 officiating staff as well as tons of Cystic Fibrosis volunteers helped the day along immensely. Special commendations go to Team Opfor, Crazy Bills Commandos, Shadow Squad and The Glen Morris Mercenaries as well as several free lance volunteers. Justin Hewitt our Head Referee for the day and James Hope who drove our battle tank did an awesome job of making our day work.
Thanks so much to the teams who took on vital roles during the day including The GRRG/Bad Samaritans Paintball, BlackOps and Shadow Squad. Thanks to all the other teams coming out to support the event and Cystic Fibrosis including The York Foreign Legion, The PTK War Hounds, BT Rangers/BT Battalion and finally Inops Suspicio. Very special thanks are extended to The St Thomas Combat Engineers for appearing for the day to provide a fine display of tools used in the field by our Canadian Armed Forces.
Drum roll please! This years event brought out a grand total of 225 Paintball Players. Following an accounting glitch the final tally raised for Cystic Fibrosis was $8000.00 to be used to fight the battle against Cystic Fibrosis bringing the total amount to date to $18000.00.
The power of paintball has been once again realized! On behalf of Cystic Fibrosis, Flagswipe Paintball in London ON Canada and The Glen Morris Mercenaries, thank you one and all.
To view more photos of this event please visit http://www.glenmorrismercenaries.com/MercsPhotos.php and search the event listings in the photo galleries located there
