Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Big donation boosts Special Olympics effort

When Kim Coates came to Prince George last month to raise money for Special Olympics, he had no idea just how deep the impact would be felt.
Kim Coates Brent Marshall
Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates (left) gave BCNE president Alex Huber (right) extra help raising funds for the fair’s chosen charity, Special Olympics. Northland Dodge owner Brent Marshall (centre) matched the amount raised by the star’s appearance in P.G.

When Kim Coates came to Prince George last month to raise money for Special Olympics, he had no idea just how deep the impact would be felt.

Before he was through, he had doubled the amount he thought he had generated at his public appearance at Pine Centre Mall, just because he and his local contacts dropped in for an unscheduled visit to Northland Dodge.

Coates is best known for playing outlaw motorcycle gangster Tig Trager on the Sons of Anarchy hit TV series, but he has a long and familiar list of credits as a stage, television and movie actor. His appearance in June was a preview presentation of Northern FanCon, the comic and pop-culture festival coming up this spring presented by the BC Northern Exhibition (BCNE) and Citizen Special Events. The lineups for his autograph and photos was exhilarating to the Saskatchewan-born star.

"It was epic. Epic," said Alex Huber, president of the BCNE. "We couldn't have planned out what we received. Kim Coates was contracted for four hours - three at the mall and one for VIPs at White Spot - but he gave us 10 solid hours. He went to visit other sponsors, he signed everything everyone handed him, he was still doing autographs on the drive back to the airport. We could not have anticipated or expected how generous and supportive he would be for us."

Part of the extra service was a spontaneous visit, at Coates's insistence, to the Northland Dodge facility. He was aware that this was a major sponsor and wanted to help Huber and company give them some additional thanks for the past support. They could not have anticipated that future support would be so immediate.

"We met with Northland owner Brent Marshall and spent a little bit of time there, and Brent and Kim hit it off," said Huber. "We raised $6,700 at the mall for Special Olympics and Brent turned around and matched that."

"I was supportive of bringing Kim Coates to P.G. because I knew it was a really good cause they were raising money for, and then for them to come over to visit us like they did, that was really special," said Marshall. "They deviated from their schedule to do that, and Kim Coates was donating his time just to make their fundraising efforts as effective as it could possibly be. He was a really incredible guy. So I made the decision to turn that investment he made into double the amount for Special Olympics."

There were other efforts as well like their annual golf tournament, bringing the total Special Olympics campaign this year to a record-breaking $85,000 at least. Marshall also upped his contribution to include the donation of a Jeep to their fundraising aid.

Special Olympics continues to be this year's BCNE charity of choice. Each year a different cause is chosen. Huber said the annual fall fair was doing its best to up its profile and community relevance since it turned 100 years old and converted from a local fair to an official regional fair (thus the change of name from Prince George Exhibition to BCNE).

"I feel it is the BCNE's responsibility to spearhead some of this stuff for the community. As the region's fair it is our duty to lead, be community involved, even when its not fair time," Huber said.

The 2014 edition of the fair runs Aug. 7-10 and another Sons of Anarchy cast member - multimedia star Ron Perlman (title character for the Hellboy film franchise, TV's Beauty and the Beast opposite Linda Hamilton, video game narrator for Fallout, etc.) - will be the guest of honour. For ticket information go to the BCNE website.