It started at a mere 1000 pounds and 10 years later the number his one million.
Those are pretty amazing numbers the Coach4Food program hit over the past decade.
“I know when I first started this we had 1000 pounds and I thought that was good,” said Coach4Food founder Tom Hedican after one of his last practices.
“Then it was 5,000 then it was 20,000 and it just exploded and we hit 100,000 three years in a row. It’s an emotional time, it’s a tough time because you don’t want to stop helping people that need the help but it just comes to a point where I had to make a decision about what I was doing and it’s 10 years and it’s time to move on.”
While Tom Hedican gets credit for using hockey as a tool to help others in the community, he also stresses that the unique program, that has been adopted by the Ontario Hockey League, would have never got off the ground without its volunteers.
“The Volunteers are everything, I get emotional talking about them too,” said Hedican, who estimates they helped him run close to 200 practices around the Christmas Holidays.
“They are not in the media, on TV or in print, but they are here with me at 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., they just do their job and they don’t ask for any recognition. I can’t do this without them, it’s gotten too big, and the drills are too complicated.”
Tom's long time friend Paul Cook works a pretty busy schedule.
North Bay’s Chief of Police has been a supporter and a Coach4Food volunteer coach since day one.
“I’ve always tried to lead by example and we try to encourage our people, both sworn and civilian in the police service to make a difference in the community and when Tom approached me 10 years ago about this idea to run professional practices for non-perishable food items or donations to the food bank I thought it was absolutely awesome,” said Cook, proudly noting that at least 5 of the other volunteer coaches are officers with the North Bay Police Service.
Erin Weber is a nursing student who has been volunteering her time for the past seven years.
“Tom is a family friend of mine, and I’ve played hockey growing up and I just, when I heard about it I just felt it was extremely important and I still feel very privileged to be a part of it,” said Weber, who is a former forward with the Nipissing Lakers Varsity Women’s hockey team.
She believes Tom Hedican is a true inspiration for the community.
“Tom is an amazing human being absolutely, both him and Nancy Ann,” she said.
“They are just very caring and very giving people. They work hard and put a lot of time and effort into this program. I can’t say enough about for what Tom does for everybody, for all of us, to be able to be a part of this.”
