Walking 9,064km across Canada to raise money and awareness was a bold and audacious idea. When we thought about how we could make our campaign unique, the shopping cart concept began to emerge.  As a symbol of homelessness, it represented the very outcome we are trying to avoid for future generations.

We laughed out loud and said “as far as we know nobody’s ever pushed a shopping cart across Canada!” It was perfect. The shopping cart was an iconic symbol that captured people’s attention.

Because of this we received many questions like:

• Can you ride it?
• Will it have a cup holder?
• Will it have a camera?
• What will go in the cart?
• Will you place sponsors on it?

These were great questions, but we had our own set of concerns, like how would the cart perform under stress, the impact of wind and weather, how heavy would it be, and how would the cart work with Joe’s body to minimize risk of injury.  Needless to say, we had bigger issues on our minds.

The idea of pushing a real shopping cart was out of the question; we weren’t really sure what we were going to use. At that time Joe was getting coaching and personal training for injury prevention from Kate Richardson. Kate and Sean owned a Chariot Carrier and we began to think that this might work.  Our first step was to engage some high school students to begin a preliminary design. We connected with Pinetree Secondary Odyssey of the Mind Team, an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students.

Odyssey Angels, a sub group of the larger organization, was created to help the “thinkers” of Odyssey of the Mind build projects that have significant community impact. Our project fell under this group’s mandate.

Not only did Odyssey of the Mind students help us design a successful working prototype, they actual won a worldwide competition and were honored in front of 20,000 students from around the world at their annual conference at Iowa State University.

The cart we developed in 2011 would eventually log over 12,000 KM, to include both training and the campaign across Canada.

We would like to acknowledge the people who put their time, energy & resources into getting us started!

We want to thank Chariot Carriers for their generous donation of CX1 with all the “bells and whistles” for use in the trek across Canada.

Check them out: www.chariotcarriers.com

Chariot is a Thule owned company based out of Calgary with a vision that aligns very well with The Push for Change; safely moving children from one place to another.

We also want to acknowledge the guys at A & A Steel Enterprises for jumping on board to construct the shopping basket part of the cart, which was added to the Chariot from the design the students gave us. It is a great example of what young people and businesses can do together.

Check them out: www.aasteel.ca