BY GREG SAKAKI
An elementary school student was the top fundraiser at this year’s Terry Fox Run in Ladysmith.
Romy Lou Russell, a Grade 3 student at École North Oyster, organized Romy’s Team, which raised $370 for the Terry Fox Foundation and helped Ladysmith’s run/walk raise $1,300, surpassing its goal of $1,000.
Russell, when she learned about Terry Fox as a Grade 1 student, developed something of a phobia of prosthetics. Not only has she worked to overcome that fear, she has become a champion for Fox’s memory and his cause, as she believes the Canadian hero should be better-known internationally, and she has a goal to do her own fundraiser run one day.
Ladysmith’s Terry Fox Run was held Sunday, Sept. 17, starting and finishing at the Frank Jameson Community Centre. About 35 participants were welcome to do as many laps as they liked along a 2.5-kilometre loop around the secondary school and primary school and up to Kinsmen-Brown Drive Park.
Proceeds from Terry Fox Run events across Canada help the Terry Fox Foundation fund cancer research.
“It is the generosity of Canadians that moves us one step closer to a world without cancer,” said Michael Mazza, the foundation’s executive director, in a press release. “The funds we receive through the annual Terry Fox Run go towards supporting some of Canada’s most innovative research projects and top cancer scientists across the country.”
For more information or to donate, visit http://run.terryfox.ca/28861.
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