Terry Fox

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For many years I had a large photo of Terry Fox in my Principal's office and in the hallway next to the picture of the Queen. He was my personal hero and I used his success as a role model for my students.His physical feat of running nearly 40 miles a day for weeks on end on one leg while battling cancer which caused him to lose his other leg was incredible.

With my luck I was president of the local cancer society and chairman of fundraising. Our allocation for the previous was somewhere near $35,000. The year of Terry Fox's run we raised over $200,000. He was such an inspirational person. I was at the Toronto Convention Centre when he came to speak after walking 40 miles in the rain and as he hobbled across the stage making that thump, thump noise from his artificial leg and foot you could hear a pin drop.

He was tired and out of sorts because his schedule was changed and the promoters asked him to do too much.He began to speak saying how much he was encouraged about the fundraising he created since he crossed the Ontario border that he knew his goal would be met. He spoke softly as he expressed to all of us his cause. He wanted to raise enough money to get a cure for cancer. Tears streamed from his tired eyes as he spoke and every person there cried openly as well. He said he did not want much from anyone only a dollar from every Canadian. That would have been about $25,000,000. His runs during and since have raised much, much more than that.

Terry did not complete his walk across Canada, he stopped the run on top of a hill near Thunder Bay. His cancer returned. When he made that announcement from the side of his small van on that cold evening he was so tired he could not complete his interview. He did say that he would be back...he never completed that promise as he died shortly after. What he did do was raise the awareness of the need for research and begin a yearly run that raises tens of millions of dollars .

On the spot where he had to stop his run now stands a statue of Terry and a plaque telling his story of courage and endurance. He was and is a true Canadian Hero. I have stopped at that place and cannot look at his monument without shedding a tear and remembering how he so changed our concept of what constitutes a hero. We need more young people like Terry Fox.

You may want to read the letter Terry Fox wrote to the cancer society to get support for his vision ...

I am not a dreamer, and I am not saying that this will initiate any kind of definitive answer or cure to cancer. But I believe in miracles. I have to.

Terry Fox, October 1979