There are over 2.5 million people worldwide right now with all different stages of multiple sclerosis (MS). That’s about 50,000 Canadians and 40,000 Americans. No one really knows why some people get it and others don’t. Hopefully in my life time or my little ones life time there will be a cure for this disease and hopefully a few others as well.

Thanks to the first Blind Dragon Boat team in 1993 and the first Breast Cancer Team in 1996, Vancouver, BC have done it again shown the world everyone and anyone can Dragon Boat. Four years ago 22 people (who are living with MS or who are spouses of those of MS or know someone with the disease) formed Off Balance. They treat it as a weekly social event with a beer after practice.

Once you get all 22 people in the boat you can not tell who has MS and who doesn’t other then four people need adaptive seating since they have to be swung in/out of the boat. I have been so lucky to have been a guest coach over the years even when I didn’t need to be there I’ve jumped on board to have a practice with them after I had my own practice.

As an able body person, there are days were I don’t want to get up and do anything but just thinking of one of there paddlers who takes three hours on four buses and a skytrain (subway above ground) in a wheelchair for an hour and a half practice rain or shine. Makes me rethink life and it gets me out of bed every the time.

At the 20th anniversary of Vancouver’s Dragon Boat Festival, last June. Off Balance decided to race one of the two days. I got a chance to watch Off Balance’s second race of the festival (the fourth and final race of the festival) between my races. I don’t know what was said on the boat or if the local seal was helping them out in that nine boat heat. But WOW! It was an amazing race to watch, once they docked and got off the boat they had smiles ear to ear once they found out that they a team that was expecting to come dead last beat two other boats.

Thanks to Off Balance now there is another MS dragon boat team based out of Victoria BC heading into their second year.

Comments for a Cause is back on for another full swing. Starting today for the whole month each comment will equal $1 at the end of the month I will be donating the dollar amount to the MS Society. Last year the 1st year Comments for a Cause ran for 13 days and in the end I donated $79 dollars to the Canadian Cancer Society. Which wasn’t bad for the 1st year. This year my max amount will have to be $250 (rest of the money is going towards nationals).

Comments for a Cause came about last October as I wanted to donate money to my local Cancer Society but I wasn’t sure how much to donate so I got Paddling~Geek.Net readers to help out by challenging myself to post daily and them to comment per post. At the end of last years I thought why not try and do two Comments for a Cause events since I donate to two charity’s.

So lets see if I’m up to the challenge again to post daily for 30 days without fail and lets see if we can beat the $79 mark before the 13th day.

If your interested in staying in the loop please subscribe to my rss feed. Just in case you missed the mentioning of a new post on twitter or one of the many forums that I’m on

Paddling~Geek.Net is having another contest, this time it will be tying in with Comments for a Cause.

To be eligibly to win the prize(s),

A Domain Name – From BlueFur.Com (free for a year)
Hosting – From Sugar-Devil.Com (free for a year)
Sock Monkey ($22 value – made locally)
I-tune Gift Card ($15 value)

All you need to do the following below:

• Subscribe to the rss feed (mention in your 1st comment that you have),
• Support daily (can you comment for 30 days?),
• Blog about Comments for a Cause on your own site, (or start your own)
• Add and Interact with me (Kimm) on Twitter,
         – Please Re Tweet and using #C4AC as many as you’d like though out the month.
         – 1 tweet will enter you into the Twitter draw

On May 3rd, I will announce who’s in the running and on May 6th I will announce the winners.

Good Luck