Years back, Stampede track announcer Les McIntyre dubbed chuckwagon driver Chanse Vigen ‘the Rangeland Derby rock star’ for the stylish sunglasses he wore when he raced.
So, when he and his wife Brie Vigen started dating, she bought him a pair of pink sunglasses. Those sunglasses sparked the idea for a nonprofit to raise funds and give back to families in need.
“(The glasses) were called the Epic dreamer, and I just thought Chanse is like the ultimate epic dreamer,” she said.
“So, I got him these sunglasses, and he loved them, and he’d wear them every night.”
Brie said that the following year, Chanse didn’t throw anything off his wagon like other drivers did. She thought it would be a great idea to order a bunch of pink sunglasses, put Vigen’s name on them, and toss them to the audience.
“They became super popular. People were reaching out to us on social media and coming to our barn, like, ‘Where can we get these pink sunglasses?’” Brie recalled.
It was important to the Vigens to not just raise money and then hand over a cheque to an organization. Brie said she wanted to see the faces of the people they were helping.
She saw this as the perfect opportunity to blend a little bit of fun through a grant program called “I’m your Huckleberry,” a phrase popularized by Val Kilmer’s depiction of famed cowboy Doc Holliday in the movie Tombstone. That was a phrase Chanse would often say the Brie.
“Chanse would always say, ‘I’m your Huckleberry’ to me when we started dating; like, I’m your man, I got you, and I thought that would be the perfect name for the grant,” she said.
“I’m your Huckleberry – we got you, and you don’t have anybody else there to support you. There’s a lot of families that are in hard financial situations, and sometimes people don’t realize it doesn’t discriminate. It can happen to anybody.”
Two families have already been supported
Brie said that at first, people wondered what they were up to, perhaps just trying to sell some Vigen swag to fans.
That’s when they knocked on the families’ doors and recorded the moment they shared with the families when they received their I’m Your Huckleberry grant.
“I knew that there had to be a face to the story if we wanted to keep momentum and make this bigger and better,” Brie said.
“It touches their hearts more when they actually see like who they’ve helped.”
“Once people saw what we actually had done, I think then it became quite a lot bigger.”
Now, one of the families they help in Drayton Valley is actually helping them sell the glasses to raise more money.
Thus far, after starting the campaign last summer, the Vigens, through the I’m Your Huckleberry grant, have been able to help two families. Brie wants that to expand.
“Last year we chose two families, and then we’ll do the same thing again this coming fall,” she said.
“Hopefully, we’ll raise more money. We can choose more families.”
For more information, visit imyourhuckleberry.ca.
