Hughes leaves behind a legacy of hope
Clara Hughes didn’t know how much money it was. She just knew that it didn’t matter how much money it was, and that she wanted someone else to have it. The last time she did this, she knew the total because the cash was already in her bank account. This time, it won’t spend much time there, if any at all.
“Four years ago, I made a donation to Right To Play, and it was $10,000,” said Hughes Thursday, one day after she won her sixth career Olympic medal, a bronze, in long-track speed skating. “We didn’t get medal bonuses back then, and I did what I could only do because I was inspired by Right To Play, and I am still inspired by Right To Play.
“But today I want to donate — I’m not even sure how much it is — but a bronze medal bonus to the Take a Hike Foundation. Because it parallels what sport has done for me.”
It’s $10,000 again, for the record. The Take a Hike foundation is a lot like Right To Play, actually — it’s a project that takes kids who are at-risk and exposes them to different experiences. In this case, it’s at-risk kids in Vancouver, where there is plenty of poverty and drug problems and assorted bad news, if you know where to look. Hughes, who has spent the last two years living in the Lower Mainland, didn’t.
“This past summer, I was driving downtown and feeling really good about the sense of connection I made here with many, many people,” she said. “And I made a wrong turn, and wound up on the Downtown Eastside in my little, little car. And I will never forget seeing people suffer so much, and I just couldn’t believe that I was in Canada, and that this situation, this reality exists in our country, with people that were just shells of themselves. And it was surreal.”
So she told her husband Peter she could not leave here without feeling that she’d done something about it, anything. Well, Peter had run into a high school teacher named Nick Boulding while kayaking off Vancouver Island, and it turns out Boulding was involved with this initiative. And Hughes, who is among our most open-hearted and open-minded citizens, loved it.
“They take kids that are at-risk, they take them from all over Vancouver, and they put these kids into programs that put them on the water in kayaks, into the back country, in snow or in the summer, camping, bringing these kids outside of the trouble that they’re in, and the reality of their lives in this city of drugs, addiction — the things that, as a young person, I struggled a lot,” Hughes said. “I’ve said it before: Sports saved my life.
“I got into a lot of trouble as a young person, and my direction — and I was one of those students who didn’t care about anything, and I was involved with a lot of drinking at a young age, and drugs, and smoking a pack a day. That was me, and this is me now.”
“So there is a way out. And it’s different for every person, and sport is not the way out [for everyone]. But I think goals and dreams and a sense of self-worth is the answer.”
In Beijing, none of the athletes who competed in the Olympics Games said anything about what was behind the curtain. It was hard to blame them; they were warned by sporting federations and the International Olympic Committee not to make political statements. So even Cadel Evans, the Australian cyclist who wore a Free Tibet T-shirt in race after race, kept his mouth shut.
Here in Vancouver, the backdrop of outrages pales in comparison. There are no disappearings, no executions, a respect for human rights. But this city’s Downtown Eastside is a blight. It has been estimated that about 70% of residents live on less than $1,000 per month; the drug problem is in the open, and it’s endemic. The city’s new harm-reduction strategy gives away approximately three million free needles a year.
And aside from the odd story here or there, it’s been largely ignored by the revellers and journalists here. I count myself among that number; I’ve ignored the Downtown Eastside during these Games. I ignored them when I lived here. Then, in this town, with all the beauty everywhere, it was easier than looking for the ugly stuff. And now, I have other responsibilities. It’s easy not to have time. And in these Games, the athletes have left it alone, too. Until Thursday. Until Clara.
“It meant so much to me to be able to give something that connected these young people to sport and the Olympics, because even if it’s in your backyard, because your life is going a certain way you might not make that connection,” Hughes said.
“There’s a problem here. There is a big, big problem. I don’t know what the answer is, but … that situation cannot just be ignored because the Olympics are here.”
Not anymore, it can’t. She has embraced the First Nations while she has lived here. She has asked what she could do to help. She is the best of us. When Hughes gave that money to Right To Play four years ago, she challenged other Canadians to do the same. The estimated echo of her actions was approximately $400,000. We’ll see what happens this time.
“So that’s what I’m doing, and I feel like I can leave town now feeling that I didn’t just come and skate in circles,” Hughes said. “Because it has always meant more to me than that.”
