OTTAWA – St. Francis Memorial Hospital (SFMH) staff were walking the extra mile to make a difference recently.
On June 1, Tracey Stamplecoskie and Lorraine Borutski from SFMH participated in The Epic Walk for Women’s Cancers. The walk, a first, took place on National Cancer Survivor’s Day in Ottawa. More than 200 people participated on the Saturday morning and embraced a 28 km walk. For Stamplecoskie and Borutski, who came in first and second, although it was not a competition, it took the duo roughly four hours, to walk from Queensway Carleton Hospital to Richard and Annette Bloch Cancer Survivor’s Park.
But the pair agreed, it was a well-spent Saturday.
The Regional Cancer Foundation and the Queensway Carleton Hospital partnered up to make the event happen and the epic walk was the biggest one-day walk in Ottawa yet. The 28 km stretch was initiated to help raise money for people within local and surrounding communities, especially women, who have suffered from cancer. The event also ended with an emotional ceremony for National Cancer Survivor’s Day.
But all the work didn’t happen just on this past June 1, Executive Director for the SFMH Foundation Toni Lavigne-Conway explained. The St. Francis Walkers Team began gearing up for the epic walk months ago, she said.
“Staff has been working over the past few months to raise funds for these girls to participate in the first annual epic walk,” Lavigne-Conway elaborated.
What’s more, a lot of internal fundraising had to happen to support the ladies.
Story continues in the June 12, 2013 issue of The Valley Gazette.