An Unexpected St. Patrick's Day: The Price Family at CrossFit with Special Olympics BC

The best gifts are the ones nobody saw coming. On St. Patrick's Day at CrossFit Okanagan, that held up completely.

I was there with Special Olympics BC athletes for their weekly fitness session. The energy in the room was already what it always is: loud, determined, warm. The particular atmosphere of people who actually like each other doing something hard together.

Then the door opened. Carey Price walked in with Angela and their three kids. The room's temperature changed instantly. The athletes knew exactly who he was. There was a beat of collective disbelief, then the kind of eruption that makes you feel, involuntarily, like something important just happened.

But here is what I want to say about what followed. Carey did not perform a celebrity appearance. He picked up weights and got to work. He sweated through the same workout as everyone else. He encouraged athletes by name after about twelve minutes, because he had been paying attention. His kids folded into the room with genuine curiosity and easy energy. Just a family that showed up.

I have been in a lot of rooms where generosity is performed. This was not that. This was a man and his family who understood that Special Olympics athletes are people first. People who train hard, compete seriously, and deserve the same quality of presence from the people around them as anyone else.

When the session ended, Carey stayed. He signed everything, took every photo, and gave the athletes the full, unhurried version of his time. Angela quietly made a $10,000 gift to SOBC Kelowna before they left. No press release. No fanfare. Just a cheque and a handshake.

That kind of generosity — personal, present, chosen rather than managed — is what I keep pointing to when people ask me what good philanthropy looks like. It looks like this. It looks like showing up on an ordinary St. Patrick's Day and making it someone else's extraordinary one.

The athletes talked about it for weeks.