Dolly Rogers: MAKING 2016 EPIC

The Dolly Rogers are amateur athletes with jobs, mortgages/rent, families, student loans, and other financial commitments. They are also aware that there are 85,000+ causes to donate to in Canada so why this one?

1. 100% of the money will be used to offset the cost of travel, accommodations, equipment, and fees. 
2. Not a single cent of any money collected will be used to pay anyone anything.
3. If by some magic, we wind up with extra money, it will be put back into the league to fund its ongoing development.

If you believe in amateur sports, the need to increase accessibility of competitive sport for women, and want to assist in accommodating the growth of competitive sports for women, EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS.

Who are we?

We are the Dolly Rogers (DR), Capital City Derby Dolls'  (CCDD) travel team. We are a roller derby league from Ottawa, Ontario, run by skaters for skaters. 

The DRs are currently ranked TENTH in Canada and we are threatening to climb the ranks. We were recently accepted to the Women's Flat Track Roller Derby Association (WFTDA), the sport's governing body, and as such, there are RULES.

What do we need?

Our team needs two sets of jerseys and we will be travelling extensively to meet the WFTDA's game requirements and for this, we need to raise money.

We do everything ourselves. In order to practice and play roller derby, we have to make it happen from the ground up. We have to rent space, build the track, get the materials to build the track, find volunteers, staff events, get insurance, ALL OF THE THINGS. It's hard work but we love what we do and we love this sport. 

We need 40 new jerseys by the end of June and we'll be hitting the road to Orangeville, Quebec City, Rome, New York, and we've already been to Moncton. It costs about $1,000 (transportation and hospitality) for our team to play in another city. To keep the costs down, we've maxed the seating capacity in all vehicles, put the entire team in one house and slept on top of one another, and we pack food prepared in advance. The additional expense of mandatory home/away jerseys has challenged the small reserve we've managed to build over the past few years, not to mention, that reserve supports an enitre league, which includes two other competitive teams and a burgeoning house league.

Raising $5,000 will get our team jerseys and give us the opportunity to explore more comfortable sleeping arrangments. As great as sleeping in a giant puppy pile sounds, it's really hard to play a game after driving for 12 hours and sleeping between two other players. We'll still max the seating capacity in all vehicles, and we're not going to rent any Lincoln SUVs to get us places and we'll still travel with food. We just....like...want to sleep in beds and preferably have no more than two per bed. We also want to make sure our coaches' travel expenses are covered. They are volunteers and paying to be volunteers is the ultimate sacrifice and it's one they make without a SINGLE complaint.

Why are we doing this?

We love playing roller derby. Our efforts contribute to the development of the sport in the long run and it's the fastest-growing women's sport in the world. We're also growing the sport in Ottawa and giving people a viable sport option, particularly among those who have little to no team sports background.

Taking the financial stress off a team that is already doing its best would mean the world to us. If we had this one less thing to worry about, we could focus more on putting Ottawa ON THE MAP in the derby world.

Thanks a lot. We know that requests for money come from everywhere all the time and deciding who to give it to isn't an afterthought. If you want to support roller derby in general, check out your local league. Showing up is the best kind of support there is!