Off the Edge, Into the Work: Drop Zone, Easter Seals, and the Courage of Community

Twenty-four stories is a long way down. It is also, I would argue, a short distance to travel for a cause that deserves it.

Drop Zone returned to Kelowna and strung its ropes down the side of Landmark Tower 7. Fifty participants stepped off the edge. Every one of them was raising funds for Easter Seals Camp Winfield, the Lake Country sanctuary that gives children and adults with disabilities a place to belong, adventure, and grow.

This was the event's 18th year. By the time the Kelowna stop arrived, Easter Seals had already raised $250,000 of their $300,000 provincial goal. Kelowna was the closer. And Kelowna closed.

It was a privilege to be there on behalf of the Stober Foundation with a $50,000 contribution. Not just to help cross the finish line, but to honour what fifty individuals had already put their bodies and their courage behind. Because that is what Drop Zone asks of people. Not just a donation. A reckoning with your own comfort. And the willingness to discard it.

Easter Seals' Mike Leland said something that day that I have not stopped thinking about. He pointed out that for many of the people Camp Winfield serves, walking out their front door is already an act of courage. That reframe changes the whole meaning of the rappel. It is not about thrill-seeking. It is about solidarity. Non-disabled participants choosing, briefly and voluntarily, to inhabit a version of vulnerability that many in this community live with every day.

That is powerful symbolic work. But it is also concrete. Every dollar raised translates directly into camp sessions, programming, and access for kids and adults who might otherwise have none of it.

I am drawn to events like Drop Zone because they make giving physical. They make it something you do with your body, not just your chequebook. And in my experience, that is when generosity stops being abstract and starts being the kind of thing that changes you.

Fifty people leaned off the edge that day. All of them landed somewhere better.