Milton K. Wong Legacy Project Overview

In 2013, Dragon Boat BC started the Milton K. Wong Legacy Project to honour Milton Wong’s memory, and to ensure that financial barriers are never an obstacle to youth participating in sport. Increased support and engagement from our donors has enabled us to significantly expand the the Legacy Project’s scope from youth teams to include All Access teams, in the spirit of Milton Wong’s vision to include everyone in our civic fabric.

Our All Access programming supports teams, for example, that include individuals of different abilities such as blind or hearing impaired paddlers, teams providing social support to individuals with mental illness, cancer survivors, refugees, high-risk youth, and more. This is in addition to the Project’s original focus on youth participation in sport regardless of financial ability.

Continuing the Legacy and Building Community

Support from our corporate partners, private donors, the Legacy Gala and all the money raised from our raffle ensure that we can deliver on our vision of an inclusive community. Each year, we deliver the following programming thanks to funding from various fundraising initiatives:

• Over $50,000 in direct contributions made to charities and community organizations to support medical research, support programs for individuals battling disease, financial contributions for youth paddlers to represent Canada at the World Championships;
• Low or no cost programming offered through our All Access programs to adult participants of different abilities;
• Over 2,000 kids participate in low or no cost dragon boat/kayaking one day programs;
• Children from inner city schools get to participate in paddling field trips including lunch;
• All Access paddlers and high school youth have the chance to join low or no cost multi-session year round programs;
• Thousands of youth and All Access paddlers can participate in the Dragon Zone Junior Regatta, the Spring Sprint Regatta and the Dragon Zone 500 Championship at reduced cost;
• 1,000 All Access paddlers paddle in North America’s most competitive dragon boat festival at reduced costs, and;
• Over 1,000 youth from around North America get the chance to discover dragon boat and paddle for free at the Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival.