Preeceville School students and staff members held their annual Terry Fox Run on September 25. They were accompanied by a few parents who enjoyed a walk in the summer temperatures.
Terry Fox often said that it was the youth who would carry forth his efforts and work towards a world without cancer. Millions of students across Canada take part in the Terry Fox National School Run Day every year raising funds for cancer research, making it one of the largest fund-raising events in Canadian history and one of the largest displays of solidarity this planet has ever seen.
Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Man., and was raised in Port Coquitlam, B.C., a community near Vancouver on Canada’s west coast. An active teenager involved in many sports, Terry was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977.
While in hospital, Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients, many of them young children, that he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.
He would call his journey the Marathon of Hope. It was a journey that Canadians never forgot.
After 18 months and running over 5,000 kilometres (3,107 miles) to prepare, Terry started his run in St. John’s, Nfld. on April 12, 1980 with little fanfare. Although it was difficult to garner attention in the beginning, enthusiasm soon grew, and the money collected along his route began to mount. He ran close to 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day through Canada’s Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario. However, on September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. An entire nation was stunned and saddened. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at the age 22.
The heroic Canadian was gone, but his legacy was just beginning. To date, over $650 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry’s name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world.
