The first Escape Room event held at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School (PSO) on Oct. 20-22 as a fundraiser for Owen Ross, who is in BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, was a great success.
The idea for these unique fundraising events for the Ross family was thanks to Natalie Sass, whose sons Jorden and Hayden are both good buddies of Owen’s.
“Thank you, everyone who played this weekend, we had fun watching you all escape our rooms. Everyone had great reviews of our rooms, and we had lots of success and we a had a wonderful time putting them on – it was rather hilarious watching them.”
Owen Ross has a rare type of leukemia, an aggressive bone marrow cancer, Natalie explains. His family is travelling back and forth from the South Cariboo to be with their son, so can really benefit from the community support.
The next and final Escape Room is planned for Oct. 28 and 29, with hourly escapes happening both days, so contact Natalie for booking spaces quickly, as event rooms were 50 percent booked as of Oct. 23. The cost is $10 per person, and it takes about an hour to complete.
The escape rooms are set up in the PSO locker rooms, and while it is recommended for participating in teams of three-to-six, there are ways to move through with smaller or larger groups.
Natalie says the clues and riddles are hidden in each room and need to be solved in order to escape to the next the room before the time runs out.
The Cariboo Cabin is the more family-friendly, as it is a “Look and Find” escape room suitable for all ages to go through (if younger ones are with family), she explains. Teams are pseudo-snowed into an old cabin and need to figure out how to escape.
Natalie says for the Mensa Challenge room, each team must work out puzzles to get free from chains bonding them together, and is recommended for ages 10 and over. While families may include younger ones, they may find it too complicated to fully participate, she explains.
Everyone escaped during the first event, from both rooms, within the required periods of time that add up an hour total– although some hints and nudges helped some of the younger escapees, she adds.
“We would love to book you and your group for our rooms, coming up this weekend, message us and we can add you to our schedule.”
For more information or to book an escape room, email Natalie Sass at psoescaperoom@gmail.com, look on Facebook under PSO Escape Room, or call 250-706-9412 (include both your name and phone number in messages, due to intermittent cell service).