Baseball players from across B.C. gathered at McDonald Park in Victoria on Saturday to play in the 29th annual Michael Dunahee Tournament of Hope.
The event serves as a platform to help raise funds for Child Find BC, a non-profit that works with families whose children go missing unexpectedly.
Andy Grant, a participant in the tournament for 20 years, described how this tournament brings members of the community together.
“It’s a very worthy cause and it’s a very fun tournament for the players,” said Grant.
“The work that the Dunahee family does for ChildFind BC to get money to help other families is an incredibly good cause.”
The tournament is named after an abducted child Michael Dunahee, who vanished from the Blanshard Elementary School playground on March 24, 1991. He was just four years old at the time and has been missing ever since.
Bruce Dunahee, Michael’s father, put the tournament together with the hopes no other family in the community will feel the pain that he and his family have gone through.
“We try to keep the awareness up because I wouldn’t wish anybody the pain me, my wife and my daughter have been through with missing our son for long,” Bruce told CHEK News.
Since its inception, the tournament has raised over $250,000 for ChildFind BC and brings out close to 350 players each year, including plenty of spectators.
Statistics Canada data finds that there are over 32,000 missing children across the country.
Mohammed Hussain
