The Burnaby Girls Sparks want your vote.
The under-11 Select B squad was named one of 15 teams from across Canada as a BMO Team of the Week.
Now a simple click of a mouse could earn the local soccer team the title of BMO Team of the Year and with it a financial refurbishment from the participating sponsor of a local soccer field in Burnaby.
"If we win, our league is probably going to go up to the (city) manager and ask him what the best field would be to fix up, and if we did that, we'd have a good chance at winning," said Sparks' left midfielder Asia Bailey, a 10-year-old Grade 6 student at Taylor Park Elementary.
Asia's father, Mark, entered the Sparks in the contest, answering the question, 'Why the Sparks should be team of the week.' His submission won the Burnaby Girls' team of the week No. 8.
"I was very excited and happy because my dad wrote it and I didn't think he could write that good," added Asia.
"It was really cool," added Aubrey Elementary sixth grader Monika Miljanovic. "We should do really cool stuff so people will vote for us. I'm thinking about coming to the mall, putting up posters, or maybe giving out lemonade if they vote for my team."
Incentives aside, the grand prize of $125,000 worth of improvements to a soccer field in Burnaby is reason enough for any community to get behind the contest.
Among the other 14 contestants in the running are the u-12 premier girls' Eliot River Ramblers from Cornwall, P.E.I., the mixed u-10 Acme Dragons from Alberta and the KNSC Boys 2000 Lions from a small village of 5,000 inhabitants in Kleinburg, Ont.
"It was a one-in-million chance in winning and hearing all the prizes made me excited," said 11-year-old University Highlands Elementary student Cristina Figueroa.
"We're a very talented team. I think we all work together. We get along and we're very committed," Figueroa added.
In fact, the girls showed commitment to the community by raising more than $1,000 for the Salvation Army's Adopt a Family program to help out needy familites last Christmas.
"Our team is very unselfish. We care about the community and other people. We're not just a soccer team. We are a group of friends," said 10-year-old Madeline Richardson.
The winning team of the year would also receive a $5,000 donation from BMO to the charity of its choice.
Should they win, the Sparks have chosen the Michael Cuccione Foundation for childhood cancer research as their charity of choice.
"We're all really very good friends and we all really love soccer," said 10-year-old midfielder/forward Mackenzie Periera. "I would ask them to vote for us because of all the reasons: we're good friends, passionate for soccer and we just love the sport."
The winning team would also receive a trip to see a Canadian Major Soccer League game or a Canadian national team home game.
But not one of the girls mentioned that as the reason why people should vote for them.
"We think it's really important to help others," Richardson added. "I think our Sparks team shows that young people can do what parents don't think they can do. We can donate money and change the world a little bit by a little bit."
To help the Sparks do just that, go to YouTube. com and search for Vote for Burnaby Girls Sparks - BMO Team of the Week, and watch the video.
You can also vote once a day online at http: //commu nity.bmo.com/soccer/soc cer-team/burnaby-girlssparks.
Contest ends Aug. 27.
