Lake City Ford donated $1,500 this week to the Cariboo chapter of Wounded Warriors of Canada.
The funds were raised by Lake City Ford generously donating a portion of their vehicle sales at the dealership during the month of July.
The City of Williams Lake has declared the week of Sept. 14 to 21 as Wounded Warriors of Canada Week.
The funds will help to provide fishing opportunities in the region that week for 20 military service veterans who are in care for physical and mental disabilities, says Cariboo Wounded Warriors chair Jack Simpson.
The veterans are coming in from around B.C. and will be joined by dozens of members of Fly BC and the Cariboo-Chilcotin Fly Fishers Association who will voluntarily help with the fishing adventures.
“The Cariboo has hundreds of quality and trophy trout lakes and this is our way of demonstrating Cariboo hospitality along with providing a valuable contribution to the healing of our military personnel,” Simpson says.
He says veterans and their hosts will be fishing at Jackson Lake, Blue Lake, Forest Lake and Quesnel River in half-day rotations involving six to seven boats.
Saturday evening, Sept. 19, there will be a formal Welcome of Veterans with internationally known and respected fly fisher Brian Chan of Kamloops and well-recognized fly fishing and fly tying writer Toni Lolli, who is a veteran of the Vietnam War.
The veterans, mainly from the Afghanistan conflict, will also attend a fly fishing seminar with Chan and their hosts on the Saturday.
As well, the Cariboo Regional Manager, Ministry of Environment, Mike Ramsay has formally issued a fishing license exemption for all those Wounded Warriors attending the much-anticipated event in September.
“Our team at Lake City Ford is proud to sponsor the Cariboo Wounded Warriors event,” Wong says. “We thank the veterans for their service to our country and welcome them to our great community of Williams Lake.”
It will be the first event of its kind to take place in Canada.
