The message Terry Fox drove home every day during his Marathon of Hope hit home for hundreds of students and staff at a Coquitlam middle school last week.
Grade 8 teacher Trina Munday fought back tears as she spoke to Maillard middle students before the school's annual Terry Fox Run about her battle with brain cancer, a disease that took the sight from her left eye.
Dressed with an eye patch and a dark head scarf, the mother told the solemn crowd how the experience has "been overwhelming and emotional and physically draining for me and my family," with weeks of radiation, chemotherapy and surgery that required a seemingly endless number of hospital visits.
Munday talked about how the disease has also hit her relatives, including her husband, and she quoted Fox, the Port Coquitlam hometown hero who reminded Canadians on his historic 1980 crusade that "cancer can happen to anyone."
Now cancer-free, Munday pleaded to find a cure "so that you or anyone else in your family won't have to fight this horrible disease," she told the middle schoolers, most of whom had raised their hands earlier when teacher Lawrence Mak asked if they knew someone affected by cancer.
The 400 students at the Rochester Street school dedicated their Fox Run last Friday to Munday, a 15-year educator whom they had not seen since she was diagnosed last January.
And many teachers wore black and blue t-shirts - made last spring for the Coquitlam Principals and Vice-principals' Association annual In Motion for Cancer Research run - that bore Munday's name and her favourite animal: a sea turtle.
The Grade 6 to 8 students also donned yellow stickers on their shirts that read: "I'm running for... " with most blanks filled in with "Grandpa" or "Ms. Munday."
Maillard's Fox Run was held a day after the Terry Fox National School Run, Sept. 27. Many schools in the Coquitlam district such as Dr. Charles Best secondary staged their runs earlier in September.
Money raised from the events supports the Terry Fox Foundation, a Chilliwack-based charity that has collected more than $600 million over 32 years for cancer research around the world.
Donations for the Maillard middle Fox Run are being accepted until Oct. 4.
