At two years old, most toddlers are just learning to navigate the world around them, one little step at a time. Sara Giard was already on her way to becoming a star gymnast at two years old, although she didn’t know it yet. Flash forward a few years later, and Sara is now the All-Around 1st Place Canadian Champion in her category striving to make it to the 2020 Olympics. Not bad for a 10-year-old girl from Lorraine!

Though the life of an average elementary school student is fairly simplistic (home, family, school, homework, friends, etc.), Sara’s daily grind is anything but! As a competitive gymnast, Sara trains anywhere from 17-20 hours a week at Gym-Plus in Boisbriand, even though she attends school full time at McCaig Elementary School in Rosemere and maintains above-average grades in all of her classes.

Sara was naturally flexible from a very young age, but she actually got her start in gymnastics at age two as a way to get some physical activity. “I was a very chubby baby,” says Sara, giggling. “Gymnastics started out as a way for me to lose some of my baby fat!” Sara was registered for parent-child gymnastics at a local gym. She began independent gymnastics lessons the following year, at age 3, and it was all uphill from there.

“When she started doing backflips at six years old, I knew we were going to go all the way with this,” says Sara’s proud mother, Shirley Dolan. “She has the talent, the motivation and the maturity to reach her dream of making it to the Olympics.” Dolan is quick to point out that she never forced Sara into competitive training—it was Sara who wanted gymnastics to be more than a hobby or passing phase.

“I’m always doing gymnastic moves all over the house, even while watching TV!” exclaims Sara. “Sometimes I walk around the house in a handstand just for fun—I love it!”

As the best all-around gymnast in Canada in her category (Pre-Novice Aspire), Sara has competed at the provincial and national level. The 2012-2013 season was her best yet, as she finished first place in the Coupe Québec and also won Les Championnats Québécois in April 2013. Sara’s most astounding performance was winning the Eastern Canadian Championships last May which earned her the Canadian title of Best All-Around Gymnast in her category. Sara won a total of six medals at that competition—the maximum possible at this event—including first place in Floor Exercise.

“Sara is a hard-working, determined young girl who is a pleasure to work with,” says Valérie Turp, her trainer at Gym-Plus. “She is motivated to achieve her goal and is very mature for a girl her age.”

But Sara is not the only one working hard to make her dream come true. While Sara is at school, her mother’s days are filled with fundraising efforts to help support the cost of Sara’s training and competitions. This season, Dolan estimates that the basic costs for Sara to continue in the sport will amount to about $12,000—a tough sum to come by on the family’s modest income. That figure does not include any specialty training camps that Olympic hopefuls like Sara are expected to attend during the off-season. Two summers in a row, Sara attended IGC, a two-week elite gymnastics summer camp in the U.S. (the cost of which is almost $3,000 for Sara to go alone), but in summer 2013 Sara was unable to attend due to lack of funds.

“Even with the bottles and cans collecting that we do every week, donations from friends and family and some local businesses, it is still not nearly enough to cover the cost of Sara’s training and competition fees,” says Dolan. “We are very careful with money as a family, and we don’t treat ourselves to restaurants or family trips so that Sara can continue to work toward her dream.” Sara’s father works full time and her 22-year-old brother helps out as much as he can—last Christmas he bought her a balance beam so she could practice at home in the basement as much as she’d like.

At the Eastern Canadian Championships last May where Sara won six medals and earned her first Canadian title as Champion in her category, Sara’s parents were unable to go with her to the competition due to the cost of plane tickets and hotel accommodations, all of which have to be paid out-of-pocket by the family. “I got the news of her big win by text message,” says Dolan. “My family and I were all sitting at home, crying for joy but also because we couldn’t be there to see her.” It was just another of the many sacrifices the family had to make in order to ensure that Sara could continue to train in the next season.

Dolan herself will be going back to school this year so that she can return to full time work as soon as possible. “There’s just no way that I can’t work—that’s not an option here,” says Dolan. “We are doing our best in the meantime, but every year it is going to get more expensive for Sara to compete.” Despite Dolan’s relentless efforts to get her daughter an official sponsor, so far she has met with many closed doors as most major sponsors in Quebec do not sponsor individuals, but rather team sports. Municipal and government programs do not provide much support either—totaled together these programs offer a maximum of $750 a year—barely enough to cover the cost of two performance suits of the type required for Quebec or Canadian competitions.

“I have written a lot of letters to potential sponsors but always get turned down, because she’s an individual doing an individual sport. We can’t give up hope, though,” says Dolan, a little teary-eyed. “There has to be someone out there who can support a promising young athlete…someone who wants to look out for Sara, who believes in her and wants to follow her success and help her achieve her ultimate dream.”

“Not having a sponsor at that level is one of the primary causes of abandoning the sport,” says Turp. “With the high cost of training, specialty camps, competition registration fees and travelling costs, it becomes extremely difficult to pursue a dream like Sara’s, even with some government support. Having a sponsor is paramount.”

Dolan’s biggest fear these days is not being able to fund Sara’s training costs, or worse—having to file for bankruptcy before seeing Sara achieve her dream of making it to the 2020 Olympics. Such was the case for U.S. Olympic Gymnastics 2012 Champion, Gabrielle Douglas, whose mother had to file for bankruptcy a mere six months before her daughter’s big win. “I understand why that mother had to do it, but I am really holding out hope that our family can get by without doing that,” explains Dolan.

Dolan has had hard financial times in the past before she met and married Sara’s father, Mr. Giard. At one time Dolan was a single mother with a newborn baby (Sara’s older brother) from a previous relationship and worked three jobs to land back on her feet again. “Both my kids know all about that period in my life, and I have managed to use that experience to teach them the value of a dollar and to never take things for granted,” says Dolan. “Sara appreciates everything she has and when she can’t get something, she doesn’t complain or whine.”

Dolan has several fundraising events lined up for the 2013-2014 season, including an upcoming Bowl-A-Thon in February 2014. In addition to fundraising to support training and competition costs, the family is hoping to raise some extra funds so that Sara can attend IGC in summer 2014. “I won’t give up—everything I do is for her,” says Dolan. “She’s a good kid, she knows right from wrong, and she deserves a chance to prove herself.”

For more information on how to make a donation for Sara’s training costs, to attend a fundraising event or to become a sponsor, please contact Shirley Dolan at 514-632-3497 or at dolans@videotron.ca.

You can also “Like” Sara’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/fanpagesaragiard.