Who is Terry Fox?

In Canada Terry Fox is such a big deal that (as far as I know) every school does a Terry Fox run every September.

The purpose?  

-  To show kids what a hero is

-  To raise awareness of cancer

-  To raise funds for cancer research

-  To realize how lucky we are to have 2 legs that work well

(I'm sure there are many other purposes... these are just the ones I thought up off the top of my head)

The school I teach at did their run this past Friday with the staff all sporting a lovely Terry Fox T-shirt

For those of us who don't know who Terry was this is a good website

But here are my Cole's notes on the topic

-  Terry was a young guy who at the age of 19 was told he had cancer in his knee

-  His leg ended up being amputated

- 3 years after his diagnosis Terry began his "Marathon of Hope" which would have him run across Canada.

it would start in St. John's, Newfoundland, and end in Victoria, BC.

-  On the back of my shirt it shows a bottle of water.  Terry took 2 bottles of water from the Atlantic ocean... one was to be a souvenir for him and the other he was going to pour out into the Pacific Ocean when he got to Victoria.  Unfortunately, he never got to do that.

- Terry made it all the way to Thunder Bay, Ontario before he was forced to abandon his run

-  He raised about 1.7 million dollars during the course of his run and his dream was to see ever Canadian donate $2 to cancer research (which is why my students bring in a toonie for their donation)

-  He died 4 years after the initial diagnosis.

-  Now schools continue Terry's legacy by participating in a Terry Fox run each year... we are by no means finishing his run as even over the course of the 13 years that we are in school (kindergarten counts) we will not come close to running across Canada

Personally, I think all of this is amazing.

That Terry Fox wanted to run across Canada even with his disability of just one real leg

That he didn't want to quit and didn't want anyone to finish the run for him (he had many offers)

and

That over 30 years after his death we are still remembering Terry.

So on our school run each staff member takes a corner to cheer on students... mine was around the halfway point so after everyone passed me I met up with my students near the end.  A couple of my grade 4's from last year were walking so I raced them back to the school.

A fine time was had by all.