Woodstock – Part III
And then came the big day we came to Woodstock for in the first place… August 14th: BLACKOUT DAY! As in her first inquiring email, back on June 23rd, Jess concluded with the promising words:
“If they are willing to commit to the date (Blackout), we will help make it a memorable day that will bring attention to the need for energy conservation and other environmental actions in our everyday lives.”
And a memorable day it was. But first, here’s a bit of history of where Blackout Day all began…
The idea of having a Voluntary Blackout Day was conceived by the Woodstock Environment Advisory Committee in 2005. The Voluntary Blackout Day program acknowledges the massive Blackout that occurred on August 14, 2003.
The outage was caused by a power line failure that cascaded through the Power System causing the shutdown of over 100 generating stations in Ontario and 8 American states. This was the largest blackout in North-American history, and affected significant portions of the Northeastern United States and most of Ontario, and had some areas without power for as long as three days.
Beyond simply saving energy on one day of the year, the Voluntary Blackout Day is intended to raise awareness of our need to conserve, and through education about these important issues, will hopefully get people thinking about environmental issues and the need to protect and manage our Power System throughout the year.
So that’s where it started, and here’s how it played out for us…
The morning started with an in-studio interview with 104.7 Heart FM with Ontario’s Chief Energy Conservation Officer, Peter Love. Showing his personal commitment to energy conservation, Mr. Love even drives a Ford Escape Hybrid with Solar Panels on the top… making it the first “Tribrid” we’ve ever seen – so cool! He even got his very own Run for One Planet t-shirt to boot.
Our interview was followed by another City Day Camp, where we got to connect with a new young energetic group filled with the leaders of tomorrow. At the end of our presentation, these kids excitedly presented us with a generous donation on behalf of the City of Woodstock. And we can’t forget – before our presentation, one of the kids took us aside to donate funds she’d raised through her own lemonade sale for the Run. Not bad for a girl who couldn’t have been older than 8!
With the closing of our time with the Day Camp, came the opening of our time at the Community Blackout Day BBQ where we were treated like Royal Guests… of the running type. Hundreds of people gathered for the event and were an incredible audience to our presentation. For the first time, we concluded our talk by throwing out two free Run for One Planet t-shirts, courtesy of WEAC! We also received yet another unexpected donation, this time from Ontario Power. We spent the remainder of the BBQ speaking with the incredible folk who attended Blackout, helping them take the Action Challenge, and touring many through the E-volution RV.
As if this wasn’t enough, to conclude the night we walked over to Charles Dickens Pub, with Adam and Brittany who’d made the trek from London, for a Candlelight Poker Tournament. I think our confused faces over what hands we had, and how much we were betting, confused people about our poker talents… because for two people who’d never played poker before… we somehow both made it to the final round! Thanks Dan, for making the ‘final call for donations’!
As lady luck ran out on both of our piles of chips, we bid adieu to Adam and Brittany, and made the final journey over to Jessica’s for a sad farewell. To top off the whole experience, and prove to us once again that “kids just get it”, those two little ankle bitters, Caitlyn and Riley, insisted they donate all their piggy bank money to us. So three piggy banks later, we had to go to sleep (it was 11:45pm with alarms set for 4:00am for Matt drive back to Toronto), we said our final good-byes to Jess and family.
We hope her parting words “Look forward to seeing you both back in Vancouver!” come as true as her opening ones did of Woodstock being a memorable event….