On a sunny Thursday afternoon, the gym at Skwo:wech Elementary School turned into a stage for a Guinness World Records attempt.
Nine-year-old Andi Clark brushed her hair, tied it up with a scrunchie, set aside her glasses and sat straight on a chair — smiling at a large group of division three, four and five students who sat in front of her as if to watch a play unfold.
Some held up posters that read slogans such as: “Go Andi! Stack those hats,” “You got this, Andi!” and “Go and steal the day!”
One had a tiny piece of advice: “Just stay very still.”
Andi did have to stay “very still” to balance a stack of fedoras, cowboy hats and St. Patrick’s Day bowler hats on her head. A total of about 20 such hats, she said, would feel like a five-pound weight — about as heavy as a gallon of ice cream.
Andi was attempting to break the world record for the tallest stack of hats worn at once.
To create history, Andi would have to beat the record of 107.5 centimetres held by a man named Anthony Kelly from New South Wales, Australia.
“I am feeling pretty good,” Andi said a minute before she readied for her first attempt.
At home, Andi had been practising for this moment since January, after her dad, Brett Clark, had stumbled upon the idea of a hat-stacking world record on the Internet and told her about it. As part of the practice, one time, Andi even taped herself to a chair and stuck a tissue paper on the wall in front of her to keep her focused, she said.
Andi loved the idea of taking on the “ridiculous” challenge for charity.
The attempt coincided with Skwo:wech Elementary School’s Terry Fox Run — part of the worldwide annual charity held to raise money to help find a cure for cancer.
At the gym, the audience watched in pin-drop silence as Brett first fit a baseball cap snugly on Andi's head and built up on it with other hats.
As the number of the “sturdy but not heavy” hats grew, the hat stack leaned violently, eliciting loud gasps from the audience.
Silence again, until a pointy star-studded witch hat was placed carefully on top. A split second later, it brought the pillar of hats tumbling down.
The crowd roared — there was a hint of disappointment followed by encouraging claps. Andi was ready for round two.
The hats fell again, and yet again, until attempt number five.
The audience looked on, some slack-jawed and some with their eyes partly covered by their hands. Andi and the stack of hats remained still as a statue. When the final witch hat was placed, the hat tower wobbled faintly but held its integrity.
Carla Visscher Hensel, an ironworker, used a Philadelphia rod (a survey equipment) to measure the height of the stack — 115 cm, she announced. If the hats remained in position for 30 seconds, Andi would be the new Guinness World Records holder to have worn the tallest stack of hats.
On the stopwatch, with just four more seconds to go, the hats leaned slowly to one side like a tube man, until the whole setup hit the floor.
Andi didn’t break the world record.
But she did smash her Terry Fox fundraiser goal.
The hat-stacking world record attempt fundraiser towards Terry Fox Foundation has so far brought in $2,750 — more than double the original goal, confirmed Brett.
With that, Andi and her stack of hats did their bit to keep Terry Fox’s dream alive — the dream of a world without cancer.
You can still donate to Andi's fundraiser through the Terry Fox Foundation website
