When Carla Rae Carey's husband suggested a date night on a Thursday night, she turned him down.
The Squamish mom and creator of dirt biking organization Stoke Builders couldn't imagine taking a night for a date two days before a dirt biking race she was organizing at Cat Lake.
There was so much to do before the June 25 event.
"Are you crazy? That is two days before the race," she told him.
Eventually, he was able to persuade her.
And boy, is she glad he did.
The “date night” was a ruse to get her up to Cat Lake for a big surprise.
They had gone for a drink and then were heading back home when he turned to the lake.
"He pulled off the highway and there was a guy standing there," she said.
That "guy" was Jesse Storey, TV producer of shows like Amazing Race.
He was there to shoot a commercial for TD Bank that was honouring Carey for her service to her community.
Carey started Stoke Builders, an off-shoot of the Squamish Dirt Bike Riding Association, of which Carey is a director, in 2019. The organization works to get more kids out riding and learning from each other and helps supply them with gear.
After donning a microphone, a bewildered Carey continued the drive up to the area where SDBA usually meets.
There were about 50 people gathered. The commercial’s host and professional snowboarder Craig McMorris was waiting for her along with a camera crew.
"Leaving me speechless is a difficult task... just didn't know what to say I was so in shock."
The shock continues, as witnessed in the commercial, with Carey being awarded gear to share for Stoke Builders, a trailer and a new dirtbike for herself.
She had been nominated by her friend Erin Kennedy, a personal banking associate at TD.
"Carla’s dedication to uniting local youth around a shared passion has helped build a stronger community," reads a news release from the bank.
The campaign is part of TD's annual TD Thanks You campaign, which recognizes those who give back to improve their communities.
Carey is a customer of the bank.
How it started
Carey originally started Stoke Builders in April of 2019 as a way for her own blended family of five kids to have others to ride and share gear with.
"I started the program to get the community members involved — to get my kids out there and give them access to other kids that were riding their bikes and just create this community feel to promote youth in dirt biking," she told The Squamish Chief.
"Kids learn really, really well from each other. So, you know, that was really important to me."
In the first session, she had her kids with one other child who showed up.
"It wasn't the most successful, but it's just grown like crazy," she said.
These days she gets about 30 youth out on any given day.
And she has had a couple of gear swaps over the years that were "really successful."
She notes that dirt biking isn't the most accessible sport with the cost of the bike and the gear — especially given how fast kids grow out of it.
She has already given some of the TD-gifted gear away, will continue to do so, and will use her new bike to help teach the Stoke Builders program.
She said while the recognition was aimed at her, none of what she does would be achievable without support from others in the community.
"This would not be possible without all the guys and girls that come out, volunteer their time to lead the groups, to teach the kids," she said, adding that local businesses like No Limits Motorsports and On The Pipe Squamish (OTP) have always supported her initiatives.
How it is going
While she won't take the credit for it, Carey notes that the SDBA membership has grown since she started Stoke Builders from about 100 to about 500 members.
As the calendar co-ordinator for the Pacific Northwest Motorcycle Association (PNWMA), she organizes the association's Squamish events.
And women's riding has increased by a lot, she said.
Recently, she helped bring a dirt biking celebrity, extreme enduro rider Graham Jarvis to town to sign autographs and run clinics, including one just for women riders.
Jarvis noted the strong contingent of female riders in Squamish. With very little promotion beforehand, his clinic attracted 16 women riders.
"He said, 'I have never done an all-women's clinic before. There's nowhere else in the world that I could pull this off,'" Carey recalled.
Find out more about the Squamish Dirt Biking Association on its website and social media channels.
Find Stoke Builders on Facebook.
