With her superhero cape flapping in the wind and Bruno Mars' 24K Magic blasting out of the loudspeakers, Braelyn Bjornson bounces down the side of the 23-storey Landmark 7 office tower.
"Holy sh*t, this is high," declared Bjornson just a few moments earlier as she leaned backward over the ledge of the rooftop.
"I sure haven't done this before and I'm pretty nervous."
Meanwhile, her rappelling partner, Joanna Penich, is just 10 feet away, and a veteran because she did the same stunt last year.
"This is an impulsive rappel because I didn't fully commit to doing this until today, so I didn't have a month to stress about it," said Penich.
On the rooftop, the weather was glorious for jumping off the top of a building -- sunny and warm and calm with a sensational view.
In all, on Tuesday, 40 people gathered at least $875 each in pledges to participate in Kelowna Drop Zone, a fundraiser for Easter Seals BC/Yukon, which helps kids and adults with disabilities.
In pairs, they harnessed up at the bottom of the building, take the elevator to the 23rd floor, then up an additional flight of stairs to the rooftop where the gang from Gneiss Climbing and Tacten was waiting to hook them up to the rappel system and provide final instructions and encouragement.
Then, essentially Drop Zoners walked and jumped a bit backwards as the rope is released in increments to rappel down the 250-foot face of the highrise.
While fear can be a factor, rappelling is actually easy.
If you can sit in a harness, you can rappel aa the rope crews at the top and the bottom feed the rope to you at the right pace and guide you.
At Tuesday's Kelowna Drop Zone, a woman celebrated her 80th birthday by rappelling, and at other Drop Zones a man who uses a wheelchair rappelled as did a man who'd had a stroke and thus only one working arm.
"This is a unique opportunity for ordinary people to be a superhero and rappel down a highrise for people with disabilities," said Easter Seals marketing and communications coordinator Jorgina Rodrigues.
Kelowna is stop No. 7 on the Drop Zone's eight-city annual circuit, which also includes Halifax, Winnipeg, Regina, Victoria, Vancouver, Burnaby and Toronto.
The four cities in BC aim to raise $400,000 every year with Kelowna usually pulling in the most money.
As of mid-day Tuesday, the Kelowna tally was $112,000 with some pledges and donations still to come in.
You can donate at www.dropzonebc.ca.
The funds are used to run three Easter Seals camps in BC for disabled adults and kids in Winfield, Squamish and Victoria and Easter Seals House, a 49-room hotel where people travelling to Vancouver for medical appointments and treatments can stay.
The sponsor of Kelowna Drop Zone is Wellington-Altus Private Wealth, which handily has offices on the 22nd and 23rd floors of Landmark 7.
" At the heart of our work is a belief that strong communities are built when we look out for one another and invest in brighter futures for families," said Wellington-Altus investment associate Emmy Pachenski.
"Which is exactly what Easter Seals has been doing for decades through programs like Camp Winfield and Easter Seals House.”
