The U11 Lakeshore Lightning White is in need of community support to help fulfill their goal of winning the Chevrolet Good Deeds Cup.
Throughout the contest, the team is completing good deeds and documenting them on social media.
At the end of the competition, the team with the most completed deeds wins $100,000 for a charitable cause of their choosing.
So far, the team has completed more than 200 good deeds since the competition started on Jan. 17.
“So, I donated a bunch of snow pants to people who needed it,” said Finley Kovac.
“I donated clothes,” added Remi Oliver.
“I’ve picked up trash in my community,” Taylor Santarossa noted.
“I’ve donated food,” Ava Saad said.
Currently, the Lightning trail only the U11 Huntsville Sting Black, the same organization that won the 2024 Good Deeds Cup.
To reach the top, the team is in need of help from the community by completing and documenting good deeds or providing more ideas for the Lightning.
Team organizer Chantelle Meadows said the deeds must be posted and follow the competition guidelines or be submitted to the team’s Instagram.
Meadows noted the cup has allowed the players to grow individually and as a team.
“They’ve really like stepped up, and now it’s like contagious for them. Like who’s going to get the most this week, and you know, challenging each and every one of them to do more, get involved, and how many more can they post each and every week,” Meadows said.
We asked some of the girls about the importance of completing good deeds for others.
“Because kindness is contagious, if one person does a good deed, then everyone else will try to do some too,” Tessa Thomson said.
“To be nice,” noted Petyon Trepanier.
“Because the world needs more kindness, and there’s so much hate in the world and you need more kindness to feel good about yourself and happy,” Lauren Meadows explained.
“It is important to make sure we can help out our community as much as we can,” Madison Villemaire added.
As the team prepared for a match on Sunday morning, in each dressing room stall, a player’s name was written along with compliments. Ainsley Johnson came up with the idea, along with her mom to do a good deed for her teammates.
“It’s important to do this to make other people feel better about themselves,” Johnson said.
Following submissions by players, the team has decided to donate the winnings to local cancer research, if they’re successful.
Specifically, they’ve selected Play For A Cure, an event supporting cancer research in Windsor-Essex.
“Some people in my family have [had] cancer,” Eleanor Hopkens said about why the cause is important.
“Because there’s a lot of people suffering from cancer in the world,” Nora Jobin said.
“We want everyone to get cured and don’t want anyone to lose anyone,” remarked Joni Siddall.
“Because cancer is a big problem in the world, even donating a little bit can help a lot,” noted Olivia Lenard Uzzi.
“A lot of kids can get cancer, and it’s very sad if [a young person] dies,” added Vivienne Delaroche.
The Lightning will have until March 6 to try and climb to the top. As part of this years competition, the 2nd and 3rd place finishers will receive $20,000 and $10,000 respectively for their charities.
