Murrysville duck race benefits boat racing team of breast-cancer survivors
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Ducks swimming in Turtle Creek are not that uncommon.
More than 700 of them all in one group, though? That doesn’t happen much.
Members of the Pittsburgh Hearts of Steel breast cancer support group and boat-racing team were hosting a duck-race fundraiser Sunday afternoon at Duff Park in Murrysville.
“It’s an all-breast-cancer-survivor dragon-boat racing team,” said co-founder Darlene Goldfinch of Penn Hills. “The board members are breast cancer survivors, everyone involved is.”
The nonprofit group is part of the Three Rivers Rowing Association, and races “dragon boats,” a thin, ornately-decorated, human-powered row boat that traces its roots back to southern China more than 2,000 years ago. A version of the sport was also part of the Panathenaia and the Actian games in ancient Greece, forerunners of the modern Olympics.
The Pittsburgh Hearts of Steel team has raced throughout the U.S. and competed in Florence, Italy, in 2018, with plans to travel to New Zealand for a future race.
The final count for Sunday’s race was 731 ducks, at $5 per duck, bringing in more than $3,600, with $1,750 split among the top three finishers.
To ensure a smooth race, Richard Winter of Oakmont was ankle-deep in his waders clearing out large clumps of fallen leaves.
“This is our first time doing it, so we had our fingers crossed that it went well,” Goldfinch said.
For more on the team, see HeartsOfSteelPittsburgh.org.