Some Sherwood Park parents just don’t know how to quit each other.
Mary-Jo Dionne and Aimee Webbe’s thank-you war has gained steam over the last seven months, with each mom going to great lengths to surprise the other.
It all started at Christmas, when Dionne and her five-year-old daughter handed out purses with supplies to women on the Downtown Eastside.
When Webbe caught wind of this charitable act, she added handmade knit hats and scarves to each purse.
So Dionne wrote her a thank-you card.
“No – those were thank-you hats,” responded Webbe.
Then she gave Dionne a thank-you card for the thank-you card for the thank-you hats.
The next day, well, there was another card.
And back and forth the moms went – “until things went bonkers.”
“I will never forget driving down Dollarton Highway and passing a series of large, pink neon signs that, when read in sequence, said: ‘Thank. You. Mary-Jo.’ I knew in that moment that Aimee had taken things up a notch and it was time for me to bring my A-game,” says Dionne.
Dionne then did what she says anyone in her position would. She hired UBC’s glee club to surprise Webbe during pickup time at Sherwood Park.
Wearing “Thank-You, Aimee” shirts, the choral flash mob belted the 1980s power ballad “What a Feeling,” altering some of the lyrics to say: “What a feeling ... thank you, Aimee, now.”
In response, Webbe blanketed Dionne’s car – and the cars of more than 100 others across Canada and as far away as the U.K. who all took to social media – in “Thank You, Mary-Jo” magnetic bumper stickers.
One of the coolest things about the thank-you war, says Dionne, is how the parents of the kindergarten class at Sherwood Park haven’t taken sides.
“There isn’t a Team Aimee and a Team Jo. Rather, whoever’s turn it is to thank the other, the parents all work behind the scenes with that person, in secret, to retaliate,” explains Dionne.
Following the bumper sticker caper, a filmmaker and dad at the school, Jeff Macpherson, approached Dionne and quietly said the words: “Let’s make a movie trailer.”
Webbe was on to her thank-you saboteurs when she saw the movie posters plastered on the windows of the Deep Cove General Store.
“I don’t think I truly believed or understood that they had made this super professional, bonkers trailer until it started playing at the party,” says Webbe. “I started to sweat, I cried, I laughed. I think I said, ‘What is this’ 100 times.”
In addition to Macpherson and local actress Christine Chatelain, who starred in the film, three other Cove parents helped put together the elaborate Thank You, Aimee movie trailer, which can be seen on YouTube.
Rod McLean is an award-winning commercial photographer who shot the faux-movie poster, while brand advertising maven Melanie Macpherson did the design. And it was Cat Reid who helped lasso 75 kids and parents to a screening of a kids’ movie, which featured the Thank You, Aimee trailer as the surprise.
Underneath all the fun a spirit of philanthropy has been fostered – along with a special bond among the Sherwood Park parents.
Both Webbe and Dionne were new moms at the school in September and now act like old friends.
“I am a Maritimer and we don’t have my family close by,” says Dionne. “So my goal for the year was that, by June, my daughter would feel like she had a family of friends and their parents. We checked that box months before June.”
Dionne is a communications crackerjack and philanthropist who was recently honoured at the YWCA’s annual Women of Distinction Awards. As part of Mary-Jo Dionne Productions Fund, she recently launched The Millipede Project, which aims to provide 500 local kids in need with a pair of back-to-school shoes.
MotherThankers.com and the Thank You, Aimee trailer are platforms Dionne is using to promote the cause.
Meanwhile, the war is still simmering this summer. The moms have two rules: No one gets a pie in the face, and the war ends when one of them finally says: “You’re welcome.”
“We were sure Aimee would get up after the movie trailer aired and say: ‘You’re welcome.’ But she didn’t,” says Dionne. “Instead she said: ‘OK, I have the entire summer to retaliate.’
