easter

Guillaume Laflamme, LJI Reporter

Five hundred colourful rubber ducks drifted down a small stream in Campbell’s Bay on Saturday afternoon as invested onlookers cheered for the plastic bath toy they had paid to enter in the second annual Pontiac Lions Club duck race.

The race followed a competitive easter egg hunt in which over 50 children and their families participated.
“It’s nice to get the people out there, and especially for the kids, they enjoy it. It’s mostly for the kids,” said Pontiac Lions Club president Terry Frost.

Last year, the first for the Easter event, only 250 ducks competed in the race. This year Frost believed there was potential to grow the race, and decided to double the number of contestants.
After a short five minutes of suspense as the ducks slowly floated towards the finish line, Mike Kavanagh’s duck won the race, followed by Cindy Ireland’s in second place, and Chris Bacuzzi’s in third.
Debbie Frost, the secretary of the Lions Club, elaborated on the event’s dual purpose, explaining that the event was both to fundraise for community needs and to bring people together after the winter season.

“It’s a big fundraiser for us. We also do an Easter time for the kids. They look for eggs, and whoever finds the golden egg gets a big basket of something,” Frost said
Corey Morrison was the lucky egg hunter to find the prized golden egg.
William Ladouceur, one of the people participating at the event, saw the race as a chance to get together with the community.

“You walk around and you don’t see people, you don’t see too much. And so it’s nice when we can all kind of get together and it’s definitely a lot more people than I thought there was going to be.”
For Rebekka Ladouceur, the event was a chance to get out and support the local community.
“I moved to Fort Coulonge a year and a half ago, and I just wanted to do more of the local activities and kind of support the local organizations,” she said.
Debbie Frost said the funds raised by the event will support local organizations and individuals in need, providing essentials like education bursaries and medical equipment.