A sea of some 2,000 pink-clad Victorians will be hitting the pavement this weekend as they run and walk for a breast cancer cure.
CIBCB次元官网网址檚 Run for the Cure returns to the city Sunday (Oct. 1) from 9 to 11 a.m. with one-kilometre and 5K routes starting from the University of Victoria campus. Participants raise funds for Canadian breast cancer research and support programs for current patients. Many runners and walkers are breast cancer patients or survivors themselves.
Event organizer Brooke Sherwood said Victoria participants are on track to beat the $233,000 raised last year, and she hopes they can hit $250,000. This event, along with other runs happening simultaneously across the country on Sunday, is the largest single-day breast cancer event in Canada. Upwards of 90,000 people are expected to participate this year.
B次元官网网址�(Cancer) affects the community. One in eight women will face a cancer diagnosis in her lifetime,B次元官网网址� Sherwood said of the impact cancer has on women, their families and friends.
Breast cancer survival rates have exponentially increased over the past 30 years, she added, due not only to research, but to the support patients receive. B次元官网网址淲ithout community support, we wouldnB次元官网网址檛 continue to see those survivor rates climb.B次元官网网址�
Rachel Staples, a dentist in Victoria, is one of these survivors. Last year she was pushed in a wheelchair by her mother, but this year she is walking on her own with the confidence of having completed her cancer treatment.
Staples and her sister were both diagnosed with breast cancer within a week of each other in May 2016.
B次元官网网址淚t was terrifying because I am a mother of three young boys and IB次元官网网址檓 also the primary breadwinner of the family, so my business was in jeopardy,B次元官网网址� she said.
She said knowing other women who had gone through the same experience B次元官网网址� B次元官网网址渂reast friends,B次元官网网址� she called them B次元官网网址� helped her when she was going through treatment. Now she hopes she can offer that support to others.
This year Staples is running for her sister and for herself and sheB次元官网网址檚 raised over $2,000.
Participants can join up to the date of the event with a minimum donation of $40 in person at the event or beforehand .
