• Dominik Kurek, OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF




Garrett involves entire team to help children’s charities. Garrett Holmes

After finishing a minor football season and raising just over $20,000 for children’s charities last year, Oakville’s Garrett Holmes is going for more.
However, this year the 11-year-old is looking to involve his teammates even further and is expanding it to his other favourite sport: soccer.
Last spring, playing with the Halton Cowboys in the Ontario Minor Football League, the young quarterback asked people to pledge money for every time he scored a touchdown or threw a scoring pass to a teammate. Doing so, the charity he started with his parents, Go Garrett Go, raised $20,000 for the Children’s Miracle Network — which includes the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children where he was treated — and Free the Children. The initiative also resulted in the youth receiving an Ontario Junior Citizen of the Year Award nomination.
This year, the Grade 6 St. Vincent Catholic Elementary School student is going even further. He is asking people to pledge money for every time he or any of his Cowboys teammates score a touchdown or his Burlington Stingers soccer team gets a goal. Both seasons will run concurrently, beginning in mid-May.
“I’m doing it so that the whole team is involved,” Garrett said of the change.
“Its a little more team oriented,” added his mother, Leanne. “Last year, the team was really excited to try and help Garrett to get a touchdown. This is a different twist on it and to try and get the whole team more involved together, as opposed to it being just him.”
There is another difference this year as well. He is still raising some of the funds for the Miracle Network, while another portion will go towards KidSport, which helps families cover the costs of entering their children in organized sports such as season fees, equipment costs, travel costs and more.
“It’s a little bit more relative to what he’s doing,” Leanne said. “It helps fund some programs for kids who can’t afford to play sports.”
Garrett initially started this campaign last season, after remembering his time at SickKids hospital.
On Christmas Day, 2006, the Oakville born and raised Garrett suffered the first of several seizures caused by what his doctors said was a virus. Garrett was placed on anti-seizure medicine for two years.
The medication resulted in fatigue and other side effects such as headaches and twitches.
Garrett was eager to return to the field after finishing his medications and after a year of being off it, the doctors gave him the green light to return to tackle football. It has been about two years since he’s taken the medications.
To help kick-off the fundraising seasons, representatives from the CFL and NFL came out to a press conference at Sick Kids hospital Monday, April 25. It included the likes of Damon Allen (retired CFL player), Duane Butler (former NFL, XFL and current CFL player) and others came out to the event, along with members of the Red Patch Boys, an officially recognized fan group of the Toronto FC soccer club.
Garrett also plays other sports. His St Vincent Vikings team won the Halton Catholic elementary boys basketball championship earlier this month. Garrett has two sisters, one older and one younger.
This year’s goal is to surpass last year’s fundraising of $20,000. To learn more or to contribute, visit www.gogarrettgo.com.



InsideHalton Article: Garrett involves entire team to help children