Keep your eyes peeled and you might just see people sporting special accessories at Carrot Fest.
The members of the Bradford Seniors Association have once again been hard at work making their well-known Gwilly pins and will be selling them at Carrot Fest on Aug. 16 and 17 to help raise funds for the Ronald McDonald House Charity (RMHC) in Toronto.
“Ronald McDonald House has made a huge difference in this community to some families whose children are alive today because they were treated at SickKids hospital and the family was allowed to be there,” said Jan Evans, first vice-president.
Fashioned in the image of festival mascot, Gwilly the Carrot, the pins are made by members of the group who start collecting materials as early as March and form a production line of sorts where they spend several hours a day multiple days a week tracing, cutting and sewing fabric, before filling it with stuffing, attaching googly eyes and drawing on those smiling faces.
The group has been making and selling the pins to benefit RMHC since around 2006 — with a short break in 2019 from lack of crafters, and hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic years of 2020-21 — and have raised more than $25,000 in total.
“As an organization that is not government funded, we rely on organizations like the Bradford Seniors Association to ensure we are able to continue serving the thousand of families who are touched by our mission each year,” Joanna Winsor, marketing and communications director at RMHC Toronto said via email. “Through community fundraising efforts we are able to make sure more families are served better, and get the support they require.”
This year, the seniors association has already made more than 1,200 pins, and will be walking around selling them at Carrot Fest, as well as partnering with Holland Gardens for a booth where the pins will also be available for just $1.
While the task of creating so many pins can feel daunting, president Elke Pitkin said the response from the community makes it all worthwhile.
“It’s wonderful when people come to Carrot Fest. It’s amazing; they tell us their stories, that they’ve been there, and what effect it had on their family,” she said. “It makes you really feel good inside.”
Evans said some generous people offer to pay more than required while others make a donation without even taking a pin.
“The goal is to sell all of the carrots,” she said, which should be a piece of carrot cake according to Pitkin who said the pins usually sell out “well before” the festival is over.
Olga Bishop has been helping to oversee production and said the only year they didn’t completely sell out was when a heavy rainstorm washed out the event in 2014.
That’s in contrast to most years, when Bishop said that by the end of the festival, people are usually asking to buy the popular pins right off members’ outfits.
The pins have been spotted outside of town as well, travelling as far as Ottawa in December and donned in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill by York-Simcoe MP Scot Davidson.
Davidson also offered to help cover this year’s cost of materials, according to Evans, who said it amounts to about $300, as the price of some pieces, like safety pins and googly eyes, have gone up recently.
In previous years, the pins were made with fabric from various orange pieces of clothing from thrift shops. But starting in the mid 2010s they switched to felt for consistency, and Bishop praised Susan Simurda’s excellent skills to sew more than 1,000 pins this year alone.
For anyone who can’t wait until the festival to get their hands on some pins, they’re already available at the Danube Seniors Leisure Centre, 715 Simcoe Rd., from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Friday.
For more information about the seniors association, visit bradfordseniors.ca.
Since 1981, RMHC Toronto has served as a place to call home for families with seriously ill children undergoing treatment, and currently accommodates 81 families at their Toronto location near the Hospital for Sick Children and Mount Sinai Hospital.
For more information about RMHC, visit rmhctoronto.ca.
