> SFU hosts Rick Mercer’s Spread the Net launch

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Contact:
Tiffani Steer, 416.669.4749
PAMR, 778.782.3210

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Comedian Rick Mercer is at Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby campus this week to kick off this year’s Spread the Net campaign and film a segment for his hit CBC-TV program The Rick Mercer Report.

Mercer co-chairs the national fundraiser, now in its third year, to provide insecticide-treated bed nets for children in Africa. Spread the Net aims to raise awareness and dollars for the purchase, delivery, and training on the use of bed nets, to reduce the transmission of malaria to children.

Rick Mercer visits with Carl Lowenberger in his lab and gets talked into putting his arm in a tank full of mosquitoes.

University president Michael Stevenson will officially welcome Mercer on Thursday, Sept. 10, at 1:30 pm in Convocation Mall, along with guests from UNICEF Canada and SFU students and faculty involved with Spread the Net.

As part of the fun, SFU biologist Carl Lowenberger, a Canada Research Chair in parasitology and vectors of disease, will challenge Mercer to place his arm in a glass cage filled with hundreds of mosquitoes.

Every $10 donation collected for Spread the Net goes toward the purchase of a bed net for a child in Africa — a simple, effective, inexpensive way to make a difference — saving lives, one net at a time.

The SFU segment will air on The Rick Mercer Report this fall.

[Editors: Mercer will be available briefly after the Sept. 10 event for interviews. Call Tiffani Steer at 416.669.4749.]

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NOTE:
Rick Mercer's visit to the Burnaby campus will be on CBC-TV Tuesday Sept. 29, 8 pm, and again on Friday Oct. 2, 8pm.

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