Next weekend local resident Jerry Roubos will be cycling over 200 kilometres in support of cancer research.
For the second year in a row, Roubos will cycle from Toronto to Niagara Falls on June 13 and 14 as part of the second annual Ride to Conquer Cancer, benefiting The Princess Margaret Hospital, one of the top cancer research hospitals in the world.
Last year he personally raised $5,000 of the $14-million raised in events across Canada, and this year he hopes to surpass that goal.
“I’ve agreed to raise at least $2,500 but would like to exceed last year’s total of $5,000,” he said in a letter appealing for donations.
On his conquercancer.ca blog, Roubos calls asking others for donations “as agonizing [an] experience as a root canal,” and he explains his immediate family and close friends have been fortunate enough to avoid a personal battle with cancer.
So the obvious question is why do it? Why go through the vigorous training and extensive campaigning and fundraising – not to mention the 200km ride itself? For Roubos, the answer is simple: his children.
“I think mentally and emotionally I could handle it if I got cancer,” he said on his blog, adding he could maybe even manage a close friend, parent, sibling or even his spouse getting cancer, though it would be difficult.
“But what if it was one of my kids? What if one of them was stricken with this disease? I’d ride a million miles, ask thousands of people for money, and offer to do anything it takes to make them better, even wish that I could trade them places…
“That is why I ride. To help fund the research that may one day ease the suffering of someone I love; to enable the doctors to find a cure for cancer.”
Roubos calls current cancer statistics “heartbreaking.” For example, according to the National Cancer Institute of Canada, it’s estimated over 153,100 new cases of cancer were discovered and 70,400 people died from cancer in 2006.
Funds raised during The Ride to Conquer Cancer will go towards clinical trials such as the world class tumor bank, an advanced molecular profiling laboratory, and a drug development program.
Princess Margaret Hospital will also use funds to work for other programs like stem cell research, cancer metabolism and microenvironment studies, immunotherapy, lung cancer, and prostate cancer programs.
To help Roubos reach his goal, go to conquercancer.ca, click on “donate now,” enter his name and follow the prompts.
