A throwback to an earlier age in sports team fundraising, the players with the Jim Wilson Couchiching Terriers Junior A Hockey Club will be staging a bottle drive in Orillia on May 24.

“It’s an idea the players came up with,” said James Evans, community relations coordinator with the hockey club.

Starting at approximately 10 a.m. in the area of the West Ridge Subdivision, players will be fanning out across the region collecting any bottles that can be returned to points of purchase for refunds.

This includes beer, wine and soda pop bottles.

With media exposure of the event, Evans hopes local residents will leave empty bottles at the end of their driveway on May 24 so Terriers players can collect them as they move through neighbourhoods.

Evans said Terriers captain Todd Jackson, Andrew Csumrik, Doug Reed and Tyler Swan are the main players spearheading the project and they have motivated the rest of the players on the team to get involved.

“The players wanted to do something to raise money to help finance other projects they are doing in the community,” said Evans.

He points to the Stick To Reading book-reading campaign as one of the projects the players have taken on and driven on their own.

Regularly during the school year, players on the team go into the community to read to elementary school students and hold contests to motivate more children to get further interested in reading.

Evans also notes the players on the team were the driving force behind the Fan Appreciation Day held previously at the Staples Business Depot outlet.

“That was something the players did as a way of giving back to the fans,” said Evans.

Buy gifts to give to children in hospital is another way the players help spread cheer and money raised by fundraisers like the bottle drive help provide funding for those projects.

A second bottle drive will be held in Barrie on May 31.