It was a great day to be out cruising with the top down, or perhaps just sitting parked with the top down.
There were a lot of classic cars and car lovers on display today in King City, all for a very good cause.
It was a day to celebrate cars. More than 600 cars – from ones with muscles, some even bursting out of the hood, to classic sedans, gathered with a goal of raising $100,000 for the Shriners Hospital for Children and Prostate Cancer Canada.
The thousands of people who showed up for Tim and Brenda’s third-annual Cruise for a Cure caught host Tim Schmidt a little off guard.
“It's almost an emotional moment,” he says, “seeing all these people here and I think I'm making them happy.”
Schmidt opened up his own personal garage and collection of cars to the public. It includes full-sized "Hot Wheels". Joe DaSilva was hoping to win some hot wheels of his own today: a special edition Camero.
“We're Ford owners, Mustang lovers actually,” he says, “but you know what, it won't look bad having a Camero in my garage.”
Rocco Rossi of Prostate Cancer Canada says he wishes men loved themselves as much as many of them love their cars.
“Men don't take care of themselves,” he says. “They spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on their cars and checking under their hoods but they need to check under their (own) hoods.”
Last year, 26,000 Canadian men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and 4,000 die from it each year.
Jim Dorsey has been a survivor since 1999 and understands what it takes to fight cancer. So does Canadian musician Alan Frew of Glass Tiger. Long before he became a musician, he was a registered nurse.
“I worked on the cancer floor and the memory of seeing that never left me,” he says. “And I don't think there's a family that hasn't been touched by cancer.”
