Fundraising stickers also show solidarity with Fort McMurray victims: Winnipegger

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This article was published 06/05/2016 (3478 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The sale of Fort McMurray Hard Hat Stickers is as much about showing solidarity with fire victims as it is about fundraising, says the Winnipeg man behind the campaign.

Joshua Sleigh, 31, who was working in the Alberta oil fields when the wildfires broke out, put together the campaign in 24 hours after arriving home. Sleigh works as a a scaffolder on a two-week shift rotation.

“We’re doing it the way we know how. It’s the gravity of it. This is where we go to work. This place puts food on the table for us,” said Sleigh.

Sleigh is already registered with the Fort McMurray Red Cross, which will receive the money. “We’re not even taking money to pay for the stickers,” he said.

The stickers sell for $2 each, plus $1 pays for shipping. If you buy 20, that would be $40 plus $1 for shipping, he said.

“We’re going to chip away at it,” he said, meaning the estimated fire damage. “Some people say we should charge $5 or $10 per sticker. That’s not the point. You need $9 billion to rebuild Fort McMurray. So there’s no amount of stickers in the world I can sell to do that.”

But it’s also a way for Canadians “to make a statement” to the people of Alberta, he said. “That’s what it’s all about. It’s about coming together.”

Sleigh was his “fly day” and on a bus carrying construction workers from the oil patch to the airport in Fort McMurray, when he saw smoke in the distance. They saw flames as they neared but they were still a ways off until one whole side of Highway 63 “was a wall of fire.” They could feel the heat from flames through the bus walls.

Highway 63 bisects Fort McMurray, and there they started to see houses on fire.

“We were too stupified to realize what we were looking at,” he said. “We made it through just before the flames jumped the highway.”

Two planes flew out of Fort McMurray but Sleigh and other travellers had to be bussed to Edmonton to catch their flights.

Two designs have already been set, and the first batch of stickers is on its way to Sleigh. One of the stickers is of a muscular arm, sleeve rolled up, swinging a hammer. It says: Fort Mac 2016: We Will Rebuild.

You don’t need a hard hat to stick a sticker. “You can stick them on a guitar case, your wallet, we’re looking at bumper stickers,” he said.

Stickers can be purchased online at http://www.fortmachardhatstickers.bigcartel.com

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca