The Windsor Cancer Centre Foundation has launched its annual Grow On campaign with a goal of raising $350,000.
The annual campaign during the month of November calls on individuals, groups or a team of people to help raise funds in support of research and treatments at the Windsor Regional Cancer Centre.
Events and fundraising efforts could include growing a beard, shaving a beard, or any other idea to help raise money.
Along with raising funds for existing programs and equipment at the Windsor Regional Cancer Centre, this year's campaign is also focused on raising money to support bringing a Stem Cell Transplant program to the site.
A stem cell transplant is a procedure that replaces damaged or diseased blood-forming cells with healthy stem cells.
Houida Kassem, Executive Director of the Windsor Cancer Centre Foundation, says if local patients need a stem cell transplant, they have to travel to either London, Hamilton, or Toronto.
"Three to four weeks potentially. So imagine being away from your family for three to four weeks or family members travelling up the 401 to see you. Then again the cost associated with that as well," she says. "Your gas, your hotel, your expenses of doing that back and forth, so having that here, we eliminate that."
Joal McMahon is one of this year's Grow On ambassadors. In August, 2022, the 43-year-old elementary school principal was diagnosed with Stage 3 colorectal cancer after a colonoscopy revealed a three and a half centimetre polyp that was cancerous.
McMahon says it's so important to be able to have cancer care and treatment close to home, especially with him having a 10-year-old son and wanting to keep things normal.
"Although my treatment was creating chaos, it was very important to myself and my wife, Karina," he says. "For me, staying home, doing my treatment, coming back home, being there for him and still being dad and coach, binging him to and from where he needed to be, it kept his world normal even though mine was a little bit rattled."
McMahon says his diagnosis hit him hard because he was very active and felt great.
"I thought I was in really good shape, I was eating well, I was active, my mind was in my work and in my spare time I was coaching," he says. "So this kind of came out of nowhere for me, was not expecting the news when I went in for my first doctor's appointment. It took a while to adjust but I had a great support team."
In 2022, $425,000 was raised during the Grow On campaign.
Since it was first launched in 2014, Grow On has raised $2.2-million in support of cancer research and treatment in Windsor.
Click here for more information on how to take part in the annual Grow On campaign.