Bennett Weger loves hockey and skating, and he also loves his sister Teresa. As he can’t play hockey right now, but still wants to hone his shooting and skating skills, he’s set a goal for himself to raise $4,000 for Cystic Fibrosis, a disease that his 15-year-old sister is battling.
May is Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month, and to help out with funds for treatments and research, Bennett has decided to make a total of 4,300 shots on net and to rollerblade at least 65 kilometers a week through the month of May.
The nine-year-old has set up his own Facebook page where he is keeping track of his progress, and within four days, he’s already exceeded his goal for his first week, skating 115 km as of Monday evening. Also in the first three days of shooting a puck on net, he’s taken 524 shots as of Sunday night.
“I want people to know about what I’m doing so they can learn about cystic fibrosis. I’m doing this because I want cystic fibrosis to be easier to fight. I’m doing it for Teresa,” said Bennett, in between taking shots on the net he set up in his garage.
He’s also enlisted pledges from his grandparents (who are pledging $1 for every kilometer he skates), and he’s challenged his hockey buddies to try and match him for shots taken and kilometres skated, and to get pledges from their parents or grandparents if they can. A number of his friends have begun posting on his page that they will meet his challenge, some in different ways, such as doing lacrosse shots on net.
Bennett’s father, Mike, explained that the number 65 was chosen from the phrase “65 roses”, which is how small children sometimes pronounce the words “cystic fibrosis”, and the number 4,300 was chosen for the hockey shots because that is how many people are battling cystic fibrosis in Canada right now.
The Facebook page can be found under “Bennett’s Rollerblading for Cystic Fibrosis Challenge”, which as of Tuesday morning had 184 members.
Asked how the idea to do this activity came to him, Bennett explained, “I was thinking we don’t do SARCAN right now, so I came up with the idea of rollerblading 65 km a week.”
He added, “I really like hockey and really want to improve my hockey skills too.”
On Saturday, a family friend and teacher, Bryan Fleck, went rollerblading with Bennett and they did about 35 km in just over two hours, and the day before he skated 32 km.
Mike said that Bennett has inspired Teresa with his noted that the Weger family has also taken on the 4,300-km challenge, to walk or run as a family — and Bennett is not counting those kilometres as part of the ones he accomplishes on his own.
