Square dancing, fried chicken, fiddles, boots and a few good cowboy hats are some of the basic requirements for a hootenanny. It turns out they make a successful fundraiser as well.
Country Throughout Time, organised to raise funds for Children’s Wish Foundation, was held at Barrhaven’s Greenfields Pub & Eatery.
Triple Trouble, a trio of teenage sisters, played a set of fiddle music. Country singer Delaney followed, and Heather Janssen, an interior design student at the college and singer, closed out the night.
Jaclyn Carter, one of the five students involved in organizing Country Throughout Time, said an exact figured hasn’t been confirmed, but at least $4,000 was raised that night.
Josée Ross, diagnosed in 2006 with severe aplastic anemia, was a recipient of a wish that has kept her emotionally and physically healthy since her treatment in 2007: a horse.
One of Josée’s treatments was derived from antibodies developed in horses’ immune systems. She has been in remission since 2008.
“Horses saved her life in a very real way, in a direct, physical way,” said her father, Bob Ross.
Josée, now 15, and Bob spoke to the crowd gathered March 8.
“If I’m not at school, I’m with my horse,” she said.
“The horse is her entire life at this point,” said Bob.
Carter said she was proud to have been a part of something so big.
“All the work we did was going to them,” she said, referring to the Ross family and others helped by the Children’s Wish Foundation.
Carter and her classmates had some mentoring along the way, but each decision was left to the students in the end.
Alison Hunter, the director of sales and marketing at the Hilton Garden Inn Ottawa Airport Hotel, shared her knowledge base and expertise.
“They beg and borrow… I don’t want to say steal,” said Hunter with a laugh.
“I really think it’s a world class program.”