THUNDER BAY – For more than 20 years, a local curling event has raised more than $2.8 million to fight cancer.
The Bearskin Airlines Hope Classic has saved lives and created hope by increasing breast cancer awareness and raising funds in support of breast cancer services.
Health Sciences Foundation chair Jody Nestie without this events funding, diagnostic services at the Linda Buchan Centre might not be where it is today.
“We’ve been able
to fund the equipment, we’ve been able to advance the care and the one day diagnosis (the hospital) has been having on every Wednesday since July,” Nestie said.
“That’s truly amazing for the community and the women here in northwestern Ontario.”
As a cancer survivor, Nestie said the anxiety you go through waiting for the results is sometimes unbearable, so to receive the diagnosis and walk away with the results the same day in incredible.
Nestie said she’s used the hospital’s services before and she wants to ensure women go through a speedier process and get nothing but the top of the line care.
Bearskin Airlines Hope Classic chair Sue Childs said everybody is touched by cancer somehow and to raise money and have it stay in Thunder Bay is phenomenal.
“There’s never an expectation with the Hope Classic,” Childs said.
“I can tell you there are 250 curlers and each curler has to raise $100, so we will make $25,000 and anything over that is a bonus.”
Childs believes the event will stay strong because of the women of Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario who continue to collect pledges year after year.
Last year, the Bearskin Airlines Hope Classic participants raised $180,000.
“They are phenomenal and they go out and they surprise us every year with what they do.”
All the money raised by the 60 teams participating in the Hope Classic stays in Thunder Bay to support the Linda Buchan Centre at the Regional Hospital.
