Hub Staff

The sun was shining for the Port Elgin Terry Fox Run on Sunday, September 20 at Northshore Park with Rough Idea entertaining the crowd as attendees registered for this year's event.

Master of Ceremonies, Geordie Farrell started the opening ceremony by welcoming everyone to the 35th Annual Terry Fox Run. “Just think, in this community we have been participating in the Terry Fox Run for over 30 years,” she said. “That's huge. I don't know too many communities that have that kind of record.”

Farrell gave a brief history of Terry Fox and the original Marathon of Hope. The Terry Fox Fun having now raised more than $650 million around the world. “This year's slogan is A Single Dream, A World of Hope,” she said. “Terry Fox inspired and continues to inspire more Canadians that anyone else in Canadian history.

“You may notice that there are some people wearing red shirts and on the back of the shirt it says Terry's Team,” Farrell said. “I do believe this is the first year where we have had four people wearing Terry's Team Shirts. That indicates that each of these people is a cancer survivor,” she explained.

Farrell introduced her husband, Earl, who spoke as Terry's Teammate. Farrel missed last year's event due to prostate cancer but was at this year's event now cancer free.

“Last year I was not here, I was busy, this year I'm back,” said Earl Farrell. He spoke of his experience fighting the disease. “Terry was likely the toughest, the meanest and the best fighter that Canada has ever known and he's put a challenge out to us and as a member of Terry's team I'm going to invite everyone here to join into the team because we have a fight on our hands,” he said.

Farrell also spoke of how he saw Terry Fox in 1980 at Victoria Park in London. “I was so inspired to see this humble, ordinary person who was just living a dream and trying to do something that he thought was very important.”

Many at the event were there in memory of a loved one who had lost a battle with cancer. Sue McCulloch-Little of Port Elgin was attending with approximately 25 friends and family members, in memory of her sister Cindy McCulloch who died 21 years ago at the age of 29 with the same cancer that Terry Fox had. Most of her team wore Remembering Cindy T-shirts which had a photo of Cindy on them. Some members had traveled from as far away as Toronto and Niagara to be there.

After the opening ceremony, Fitness Corner staff put the runners, walkers, cyclists and roller bladers through warm up exercises before they set off on their 2 km, 5 km or 10 km route along the shore path by the lake.

At the end of the day over $14,500 was raised to go towards cancer research.

Check out our video HERE.