Halifax man taking on outrageous dares to fundraise in honour of cousin Rylee Sears – Halifax

Eric Anstey is in his seventh year of raising funds for a great cause and he’s doing it in a unique way.

Anstey is accepting dares online from friends, family and fans, who love to watch his antics and contribute money to help him raise funds for the Rylee Sears Scholarship Fund.

Rylee Sears, Anstey’s cousin, was fifteen years old when he died in 2015 after contracting meningitis.

The fund provides post-secondary scholarships for students from Sackville High School who share similar attributes to Sears.

“He was a fantastic young man. He was kind, considerate, fun-loving. He was a team player,” Anstey recalls.

Over the years, Anstey and his wife, Sarah, have taken to Facebook live to broadcast videos for their hundreds of viewers of Anstey doing things such as dressing as a swan and swimming in a pond, ice skating on the oval in a bathing suit and eating various spicy foods.

There’s not too much he would shy away from.

“I’ve licked barbecue sauce off people’s feet. I’ve eaten a few sandwiches that involved Vaseline and olive paste and I ate fermented fish called surströmming, which is filthy to say the very least.”

This year, a crowd favourite was when Anstey roller-skated down Sackville Drive in a speedo and Santa hat — a nice festive flare.

To date, he’s raised over 32,000 and he is still going strong.

On Saturday, he will hold a food drive in support of Eastern Shore Food Bank between 2 and 4 p.m. by the “Lobster Trap Tree” in Musquodoboit Harbour.

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