Get ready to see rubber ducks racing down the Beaver River.
Sunday, June 3, will mark the 27th annual Ardmore Duck Race. Kicking off at 12 p.m., the Ardmore School fundraiser will have activities for the whole family, but the true crowd pleaser, and where the event gets its namesake, is the duck race, starting at 1 p.m.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the whole community again,” said Stacy Slipchuk, secretary on the school’s parent council and event volunteer. “It’s something that we try to get more and more people out to, and this year, it’s going to be even bigger and better than the year before.”
For two decades the Duck Race has been raising funds for various activities and programs at Ardmore School.
“There was a group of people that started the Duck Race 27 years ago. The purpose of it was just to try to bring some outside funding into the school for extra curricular activities,” detailed Slipchuk. “It has become a really great community fundraiser for the school and partially for the community as well.”
With the help of the Ardmore and Fort Kent fire departments, 2,000 ducks are dumped into the Beaver River.
Waiting at the finish line are the local firefighters armed with big nets and laundry baskets ready to collect the ducks.
“They play a really big role in helping us out with that,” Slipchuk added.
Due to the high volume of people coming to watch the race unfold, local RCMP and MD peace officers are notified of the event.
“We’ll get regional constables to come out and let the RCMP know just to watch the road because we get hundreds of people out on the side by the river,” said Ardmore fire chief Dana Swigart. “All those people will rush to the river when we release the ducks, so we need the police up there to slow the traffic down and control them.”
Residents watching from the riverbanks and the bridge above will be rooting for the ducks they purchased as part of the fundraiser.
Every year, the organizing committee sells the rubber ducks that will be racing down the Beaver River. This year, their fingers are crossed that everyone who buys a duck will make it out to the event.
“Our hopes are that we’ll get at least one person from each family that buys a ticket to come out,” Slipchuk expressed. “It doesn’t always go that way because some people just buy a ticket to support the school, but they don’t actually come out to the event.”
The school is planning to use the proceeds from the Duck Race to build an outdoor classroom.
Slipchuk said, “It’s a big project that we have in the works. Other than that, it’s also to continue to fund some of the programs that we have currently that we used the proceeds from last year.”
Apart from the race itself, the event has other free activities for kids like the big splash booth, face painting, and sparkle tattoos, among others.
“It’s something for people to do while they’re waiting for the actual ducks to go into the river,” noted Slipchuk.
Tickets for the event are available at Ardmore School, Ardmore M&M Mini Mart, Northern Lights Truck Stop, and Touch-of-Green Greenhouse.
