Nick Bekolay, Lake Cowichan Gazette
The Terry Fox Run returns to Lake Cowichan Sunday, Sept. 15, as the national fundraising campaign marks its 33rd anniversary.
Members of local hiking club — the Cowichan Lake Retreads — are helping organize the run for a third year in a row, wrote Retreads member Jean Cozens, and they’ve scheduled the run to start from Saywell Park at 10 a.m.
Registration begins at 9 a.m. that morning, Cozens wrote, and participants pay no fees whatsoever.
Lake Cowichan’s version of the run has grown in recent years, Cozen added, with close to double the number of participants turning out in 2012 when compared with 2011.
“Let all of us help, in whatever way we can, to raise money for cancer research and to keep Terry Fox’s dream alive,” Cozens added. “There is no entry fee for the run, participants go whatever distance they wish — 10 feet to 10 kilometres — and (participants) can choose between making personal cash donations, submitting cheques payable to ‘The Terry Fox Foundation,’ or collecting pledges.”
Participants are welcome to run, walk, bike or even crawl — babies are invited, Cozens added — any distance that suits their fancy, and Cozens hopes the brand new asphalt carpeting Lake Cowichan’s main thoroughfare will boost participation in this year’s event.
“Friends, family and the whole town is invited,” Cozens added, reminding readers that pledge forms are available from Cowichan Lake Recreation, Country Grocer, and the Honeymoon Bay and Youbou community halls.
According to the Terry Fox Foundation, there are over 9,000 Terry Fox Runs hosted worldwide each year.
To date, the TFF has raised over $600 million for cancer research worldwide and in 2012 alone, the TFF invested an estimated $29.3 million into research towards “cure-oriented” studies, “translational research” — to facilitate the transmission of new discoveries from the lab to the front lines — and in “training future leaders in cancer research.”
For more on this year’s Terry Fox Run or the TFF, call 1-888-836-9786.