Good news for Groupe Action.
The Hawkesbury-based agency provides complementary health and early childhood education services to residents requiring them. Groupe Action has received a Resilient Communities Fund grant of $162,500 from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) for hiring a lead person responsible for the organization’s technology and digital activities and acquiring supplies and equipment to provide a safe and functional work environment.
The OTF grant for Groupe Action complements the funds raised by the Vent de face campaign and bicycle trip recently made by longtime friends Yanick Brunette and Guillaume Larivière-Durocher. The duo, who grew up together in Hawkesbury, embarked from Québec City on August 19 with the plan to arrive in their hometown on August 22. The trip was to raise funds for Groupe Action because both Brunette and Larivière-Durocher are deeply concerned about the significant poverty faced by many Hawkesbury residents and wanted to help Groupe Action’s efforts to assist people in need.
As of August 31, the Vent de Face campaign had raised $4,130 for Groupe Action. The goal is $5,000.
Vent de face is French for headwind, and Brunette and Larivière-Durocher indeed faced challenging conditions on their journey. They chose to avoid cycling along major roads as much as possible and instead chose to follow rougher forest access roads and paths through the belt of parks and wildlife reserves stretching from the Québec City region to Argenteuil. Conditions were extremely difficult.
“At dusk on Sunday (August 20), after having covered about 125 kilometres, we encountered our first obstacle: the last 35 kilometres of the journey proved to be impassable by bike,” Brunette and Larivière-Durocher explained.
They tried to continue on foot, but the darkness, visibility and progress were extremely complicated. They spent the night in the forest, waiting for dawn so they could resume their journey.
On Monday, August 20 at around noon, after pushing their bikes for more than 20 kilometres with an elevation gain of 400 metres through incredibly difficult terrain, Larivière-Durocher and Brunette finally arrived at our destination: the campsite. After a long reflection, they made the difficult decision to end their trip after covering 320 kilometres to prioritize their safety.
Although we feel deeply disappointed that we did not achieve our initial goal, it is crucial to highlight the cause we support,” Larivière-Durocher and Brunette said.
“Our privileged position allowed us to overcome this obstacle, however, within our community, many families face insurmountable challenges, with no escape route,” they added.
Brunette and Larivière-Durocher emphasized that the very essence of their adventure lay in raising community awareness of local poverty, as well as in raising funds for Groupe Action.
“We would like to express our deepest gratitude to our families, friends, community partners, media and everyone who contributed to our fundraising campaign. Your support and encouragement throughout this experience is greatly appreciated,” they said.
Donations are still being accepted to Vent de face. For complete instructions, go to https://www.ventdeface.ca/.
