When the Bearskin Airlines Hope Classic first started 15 years ago, organizers had no idea what they’d created.
Attempting to raise $5,000 to support breast cancer research, they raised $39,000 that first year. It jumped to $90,000 by 2000 and by 2006, a whopping $210,000 was collected. Their annual total hasn’t dropped below $165,000 since, money that offers hope to those touched by the deadly disease.
“Every year is special at the Bearskin Airlines Hope Classic because every year is different,” said committee member Sue Childs, a fixture at the annual event for as long as it’s been around.
“We change things up so that nobody knows what to expect.”
Well, other than those on the receiving end of the funds, namely the Linda Buchan Centre through the Northern Cancer Fund.
“But it is also a weekend of 265 or 270 women getting together, raising money, having fun, laughing, crying. The camaraderie is unreal.”
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They take what they can get, said Childs, whose best friend Buchan was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 39, dying eight years later in 2002 from the disease.
“We have some ups and downs. The year that Linda passed obviously the women worked harder. The year of the 10th anniversary, the women worked harder. So who knows? These are tough economic times for everyone, so anything is a bonus.”
The three-day event, scheduled to start on Feb. 17 at the Fort William Curling Club, has worked miracles for cancer research, said Michael Power, the vice president of regional cancer care and diagnostic services at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
“What you do for our cancer centre and our cancer patients is amazing,” Power said Thursday at a luncheon held to honour the Classic’s many sponsors.
The advances made since 1997 have completely modernized the way cancer is detected and treated, he added.
“We are now in a situation where we are diagnosing an overwhelming number of women with stage 1 and 2 of the disease, which is ultimately treatable and can save lives,” Power said, noting that well over 50 per cent of women who should be screened for breast cancer in Northwestern Ontario are getting the test done.
Still, those numbers could be better, he added.
“With your help we can to that number to 55 per cent to 60 per cent t0o 70 per cent and break through the provincial standard.”
Joanne Lacourciere, the director of diagnostic imaging at the hospital, said the money has been put to great use.
“In my mind I was doing the mental math,” she said. “With a little over $2 million we’ve bought two mammography units, we bought an ultrasound unit and a couple or reading stations for our radiologists to do their work.
“We bought biopsy devices and I think about the Linda Buchan Centre and the infrastructure required to deliver high-quality care and I bet you the Hope Classic has paid for all of that. It’s been essential, I guess that’s the only way to say it.”
Follow Leith Dunick on Twitter: @tbnewswatch.com
