The gymnasium at Spectrum Community School quickly filled up on Thursday morning, Oct. 3 to welcome Tour de Rock riders who are making a quick stop to personally thank the school for helping raise money for cancer research.

The riders, on the final stretch of their 14-day journey, walked into the gymnasium in Saanich with their bikes, accompanied by a drumline and were met with thunderous applause by hundreds of students, faculty members and school officials who have been eagerly anticipating their arrival.

Since the start of the tour on Sept. 21, Spectrum has organized pockets of fundraising events - from bake sales, to individual fundraising, car washes to a grad event to raise money for childhood cancer research and support services at the Canadian Cancer Society.

"It's an opportunity for us to really celebrate coming and supporting something that is impactful to every person in this building, whether it's a friend, an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent, we've all been affected by cancer," Aaron Norris, school principal, said.

This year, the school had a really unique connection with Tour de Rock with one of their students, Devon Wallace because both her parents, Daniela Frohloff and her stepdad, Jeremy Leslie, of Saanich Police Department are riding this year.

"This is the first time I've seen them since they started the tour," Wallace said." "I'm happy to support the cause. In fact, I raised $5,000 this year by doing huge bottle drives in the summer."

Devon assisted her parents in shaving their heads in front of a cheering crowd along with other students, including Steven Croy.

"In February, I was like, my hair is pretty long, I should let it grow further and shave it for," Croy excitedly shared. "This is the first year that I put serious fundraising effort into it and raised almost $750 just on my own."

Croy was taking cash donations from friends and family at school, asking them to choose a colour for his hair for $50. In the end, he had pink, red, blue, green and orange in his hair.

"Shaving my hair means that I get to help kids who are less fortunate than myself to get to go to ."  

With both their contributions, Spectrum Community School raised a total of $11,582 for Tour de Rock.

Gordon Thatcher, Social Studies department head, and the school's Tour de Rock organizer since 2016 sums up the day's event calling it, "electric."

"The drumline coming in, the dancers and then the riders themselves...when they came in with the applause and everything, that was electric for sure".