Trudging through the rain, umbrellas in hand, Paul and Karen Chesterton joined more than 100 people participating in the Terry Fox Run in Walnut Grove Sunday morning.
Taking part in the cancer fundraiser has officially become a family tradition, Paul said. The Walnut Grove couple was accompanied by Paul’s parent, Geoff and Catharine, as well as their two daughters, 12-year-old Lauren and nine-year-old Caelyn, plus their dog, Benson.
“We’ll definitely do it again,” Paul said, noting the Terry Fox Run is close to his heart because he grew up in Fox’s hometown of Port Coquitlam and graduating from Terry Fox high school.
“It has a special meaning for me,” Karen said, walking in memory of her late parents.
She lost her mother five years ago, after a three-year battle with ovarian cancer, and then two years later lost her dad rather quickly, after he was diagnosed with a tumor on his hip.
“I think everyone appreciated what we were there for and the weather really was secondary,” Paul said, acknowledging that everyone was well soaked by the time they finished the five-kilometre leg of the walk.
There may have been a lot of wet shoes and potential webbed feet, but it wasn’t anything a towel and hot chocolate couldn’t rectify, he chuckled.
On a more serious note, Paul said participants in Sunday’s walk accepted the weather, especially – as many of them discussed during the trek – recounting how Terry Fox ran, rain or shine for 143 days before debilitating pain forced him back to hospital where it was confirmed that the cancer that previously claimed his leg was back. He died nine months later.
By being part of Sunday’s walk, the Chestertons said it was a chance to show appreciation for all that Terry did with his marathon, to appreciate the legacy he left behind, to keep his fundraising efforts for cancer research going strong, and to show what Terry Fox continues to mean to Canada and the world.
“As much as it was a chance to get out for some fresh air on a rainy day, it was for a good cause,” Paul said, and that’s something he hopes will never be forgotten.
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Event organizer Midori Turner was impressed that 108 people still turned out despite what she called “ugly” weather.
“It was kind of a damper with the rain,” she said. “But, considering the rain, I’m pretty happy with the turnout.”
Admittedly, attendance was down about 50 from past year, but the donations were not, said Turner, a member of the Rotary Club Langley Sunrise, the organizing body for the Walnut Grove run.
This year’s event still managed to raise about $4,000 for the Terry Fox Foundation, and there are ideas being floated to add a pancake breakfast next year that could help generate even more money.
While Turner has headed up the event for the past five of her six years in Rotary, she’s hoping someone else will take the reins next year – so she can actually run.
She took up running about a year and a half ago, and wants to run in, rather than run the event for a change.
Like so many, she’s been touched by cancer, too and she wants to run in honour of her father.
“It’s definitely effected me. My dad is a three time survivor – skin, lung, and throat,” Turner said. She’s anxious to give back knowing how much all the research conducted since Terry Fox’s marathon in 1980 has helped not only her father but thousands of other survivors.
RELATED STORY OUT OF LANGLEY: Kamloops man looks forward to joining in Langley City Terry Fox Run
ALSO IN LANGLEY: Langley City unicyclist keeps pedalling for Terry, all these years later
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