ESTEVAN — Sacred Heart School/École Sacrè Coeur was among those in the southeast to show their support for the fight against cancer by hosting a Terry Fox Run.
Students raised more than $2,200 for the foundation, bringing Sacred Heart’s lifetime fundraising total to more than $22,000 for cancer research. Their walk was held on Sept. 20.
During an assembly before the walk, Madison Massey, a school ambassador for the Terry Fox Foundation, told the students she was excited to be in Estevan and talk about one of Canada’s heroes. She travels to schools across Saskatchewan and talks about the things Fox did when he was young.
“I remember running in the Terry Fox Run when I was younger like you guys, so it’s pretty cool to be the one up here today to show you and tell you all about Terry,” said Massey.
She showed a couple of videos to the students that chronicled Fox’s famous story.
He had his right leg amputated six inches above the knee at the age of 18. The night before the surgery, his former high school basketball coach visited him and gave Fox an article about another man who lost his leg to cancer but managed to complete a marathon.
It inspired Terry to eventually embark on the Marathon of Hope for cancer research.
After learning to walk again with a prosthetic leg, he focused on running and told family and friends he was training for a marathon. In September 1979, he finished last in a 29-kilometre race but amazed the crowd with his tenacity.
On April 12, 1980, he set out from Canada’s most eastern point in Newfoundland and ran 42 kilometres per day – equivalent to a marathon – for 143 days. His goal was to raise $1 million but it eventually became $1 from every Canadian – equivalent to $24 million at the time.
“Terry ran through snow, rain, wind, heat and humidity, all to achieve his one goal,” she said. “Some days Terry began running at 4:30 in the morning and didn’t finish the last mile until 7 [p.m.]. Other days hundreds of people would show up to support him and some days he looked over on the road with no money being raised. But Terry never gave up hope.”
His prosthetic leg was made for walking, not running, so every step he took burned, she said.
The Marathon of Hope ended just outside of Thunder Bay, Ont., after Fox had run more than 5,500 kilometres, or more than two-thirds of his journey. The cancer had spread to his lungs. He died in 1981 at the age of 22.
Thousands of schools across Canada participate in the Terry Fox Run and raise funds for cancer research each year, she said.
