They brought a whole new meaning to the term ‘hanging out.’
Chemainus Fire Department’s Andy Beam and Ladysmith RCMP’s Mason Dirnback both have kids attending Chemainus Elementary School, but they hung out there Thursday in an entirely different fashion.
Beam and Dirnback were good sports for the school’s annual Terry Fox and Tour de Rock cancer fundraisers. They faced a very sticky situation, being affixed to a wall for two hours while every student in the school came through the gym to apply different coloured pieces of tape to help hold them there.
No bathroom breaks here, folks.
Talk about going through a lot of red tape for a fundraiser. But they also had to endure green tape, blue tape, pink and every other colour applied to them.
Near the end, “I feel fine, but I don’t think they’re going to hold me up,” said Beam.
But those students and staff members obviously knew what they were doing and stuck it to him enough to hold him against the wall after a milk crate he’d been standing on till the job was done got removed.
When Beam burst off the wall with his tape jacket intact, “I told them I was going to get out of it,” he grinned.
“It was fine,” Dirnback said afterwards about the event that would have been a huge ordeal for many people.
But RCMP training put him in the right frame of mind and body for the event.
“We had lots of practice standing still,” he joked.
“I like coming to the kids’ school. It’s good for the kids to see the police. I like being a cop and I like doing stuff like this, too.”
Chemainus Elementary principal Brenda Stevenson has been in that position against the wall before herself, but was pleased not to be doing it this time and reported the fundraising a success.
More than $500 each from the school will be contributed to Terry Fox and Tour de Rock campaigns.
“That’s pretty good,” she said. “I’m pretty excited.”