When Mike Fekete arrived in Canada in 1977, his first friends in his new country were members of the Island(now Toronto Island), Mississauga, Oakville(now Burloak) and Balmy Beach Canoe Club. Chris Helyar, Jeremy Fowlie, Graham Barton, Brett Stein, the Oldershaw brothers, and many other canoeists, too many to mention them all.

Mike will never forget the hospitality and the camaraderie of those times and has done his best with KayakSportCanada to give back as much as he can to the paddling community.

It all started in 1985 when Toronto had the honour of staging the first World Master Games, 8,305 competitors arrived from 61 countries from all over the world to participate in 22 sports. Canoeing was among the five most popular events.

KayakSportCanada lent (not rented!) it's entire fleet of kayaks and canoes to overseas athletes. This act was repeated in Portland, Oregon and then Edmonton where canoeists from Russia to Australia were able to use the boats free of charge.

KayakSportCanada has donated kayaks, canoes, outriggers and stand up paddleboards to several clubs, individuals and initiatives such WomenCan, which was started by Sheila Kuyper in 2004 with the purpose of developing women's canoe programs and athletes in Canada and Paddle All with the goal of helping athletes with physical disabilities.

From Sudbury to Wai Nui and from Cobourg to Six Nations Aka:we Canoe Club, Mike received several awards for his outstanding contribution to their programs.

"KayakSportCanada's most important mission is to help paddlers. Everything else comes after," he said when he received the prestigious Six Nations Pauline Johnson Award together with Bert Oldershaw at the club's initial regatta on the Grand River in 2004.