The unofficial motto of the U.S. Postal service might be, ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,’ but it seems the phrase is also appropriate for the Breast of Friends.
On June 25, a group of friends from the Barrhead area travelled to Calgary to take part in a one-day, 25-kilometre walk as part of their fundraising effort for the Alberta Cancer Foundation.
Before taking part in the event, which was called One Walk to Conquer Cancer, the team had to raise an average minimum of $1,500 per person. The six-person Breast of Friends team raised $13,000.
Violet Schriever, one of the Breast of Friends, said the weather was just horrible.
“It poured rain at the beginning then stopped for a brief time an hour later, before resuming again. Then it started to hail and just as we closed in on the finish line the rain just came down in buckets,” she said, adding putting up with the poor weather was a small price considering the number of people the team was potentially helping.
A Statistics Canada document estimated there were 196,900 newly diagnosed cases of cancer in Canada in 2015. It is also estimated that 78,000 Canadians lost their lives due to cancer the same year.
In Alberta, the numbers are equally disturbing, with more than 17,000 new cancer cases being diagnosed and 6,500 deaths due to cancer in 2015.
Schriever considers herself to be one of the lucky ones, being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003 when she was 54-years-old.
Although the disease runs in Schriever’s mother’s side of the family, she was taken by complete surprise when the travelling Screen Test mammography clinic detected cancer.
She then underwent a series of chemotherapy treatments along with radiation and was diagnosed as being in remission. About three years later, in 2007, she joined Breast of Friends and took part in a two-day, 60-kilometre walk in Edmonton called a ‘Weekend to End’ Cancer.
Schriever said the team was actually started by Laura Renkema from Fort Assiniboine who recruited another breast cancer survivor Jill Lee. Over the years the team grew to include Jill’s son, James, Lori Kirchner and Debbie Breitkreitz, as well as Schriever and her husband Hans-Werner.
The day started at 6:30 a.m., followed by breakfast and an opening ceremony. Participants then embarked on a six-hour walk through the downtown and residential areas of Calgary. For the most part, the Breast of Friends members all walked at their own pace, mingling with other teams along the way. Every once and a while when the team got too far apart they would wait at one of the many rest stops along the route and wait for their teammates to catch up.
It is at one of these rest stops that the team met Maria Paull, a young woman who was walking alone on behalf of her mother who is undergoing chemotherapy treatment. The group didn’t want her to walk alone so they asked her to join them.
“I think that is what I will take away from the whole event,” Schriever said. “We met and talked to so many people whose lives have been impacted by cancer. Everyone had different stories and they were a great reminder of why we were all out there walking.”
However, for a while Breast of Friends did not know if they would be able to make the trip.
In mid-May the team had only raised about 35 per cent of the funds needed to register for the walk.
“I really want to thank everyone who helped us not only reach our goal, but surpass it. Everyone in the Barrhead area has always been so good to us,” she said, adding the team hopes to continue to participate in future the One Walk to Conquer Cancer events.
“I hope an event in Edmonton is able to be resurrected. That way more people from northern Alberta are able to take part,” Schriever said, adding she also hopes the Alberta Cancer Foundation lowers the amount needed to register. “If they did, I think even more people would be able to walk, raising that much more to help people with cancer and to battle the disease.”
