Falling Whistles
Falling Whistles sells whistles for $34 to $104 to raise money for education, advocacy, and the rehabilitation of war-affected people in Congo. The organization got its name from a journal written by its founder, sharing his experiences during a trip to eastern Congo in 2008. During that trip, Falling Whistles' founder met a group of five former child soldiers who told him that some children who were too young to carry weapons were sent into battle armed only with whistles. By wearing whistles, the campaign aims to use this weapon as a tool of protest and to raise awareness of the situation in Congo. As of September 2010, $500,000 has been raised.
Ron Foxcroft
Foxcroft often became frustrated with the traditional design of referees' whistles, which features a "pea" (cork ball) inside that is prone to jamming, thereby preventing the whistle from producing sound. He was inspired to create a "pealess" whistle following incidents in international games including the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the 1984 pre-Olympics game in São Paulo, in which Foxcroft witnessed an obvious foul but he could not stop play as his whistle was rendered useless by a jammed pea; play continued and the referees were booed by spectators. Foxcroft collaborated with an Ontario design consultant, Chuck Shepherd, to design a pealess whistle; they established Fox 40 International in 1987, and the company's whistles were first used at the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis. Throughout the 1990s, Fox 40 whistles became the standard whistle for referees and officials in numerous major professional sports leagues including the NFL, CFL, NHL, NCAA and NBA; it has also been adopted as a standard by numerous public safety agencies around the world. Today, Fox 40 International dominates the whistle industry with thousands of whistles produced each day in Canada.