As the rain poured down around Alice Lake Friday (Sept. 21), students from Stawamus Elementary School could only imagine how grueling Terry Fox's cross-country trek must have been.
Teachers, parents and 86 students from kindergarten to Grade 7 ran at least one lap together around the lake to raise $70 for cancer research. The wet run put Fox's strength and spirit of hope into context, said students.
"He must have been really strong to run that long a whole bunch of times," said Grade 5 student Aislinn McCullough, taking a breather after her lap.
While the Terry Fox Run has raised over $400 million since its first in 1981, the school's main goal was to get the kids active and teach them the importance of facing adversity. Before the run, students were shown a video documenting Fox's journey across Canada from St. John's N.L., which was stopped short 143 days and more than 5,000 km later near Thunder Bay, Ont. because cancer developed in his lungs.
Grade 1 teacher Jack Fieldhouse said it was essential the students understood Fox's sacrifice and what his run means to cancer patients and their families.
"The kids are usually pretty amazed at how difficult it must have been for him, and how many times around this lake it would have been," said Fieldhouse. "Today shows that he had sunny days but he had a lot of terrible days, too."
