Hundreds of local students will come together for a Terry Fox event.
Students with the Greater Essex County District School Board (GECDSB) will come together on September 17 for a system-wide Terry Fox event at Sandwich Secondary School to honour Terry Fox’s legacy while inspiring student leaders to continue his Marathon of Hope.
Upwards of 600 students within the Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) Health and Wellness and Student Senate students representing 13 GECDSB secondary schools will participate in the event.
The event will mark the first system-wide gathering locally in support of the Terry Fox Foundation to raise awareness and support cancer research and strengthen community.
The event will also feature guest speakers including Fred Fox, Terry Fox’s older brother, Tyler McGregor, captain of Canada’s National Para Hockey Team, and Dr. Caroline Hamm, a Windsor oncologist who works with the Terry Fox Research Institute.
Joe Bell, Superintendent of Education, Student Well-Being and Student Mental Health with GECDSB, says they want the students to be inspired and come together as a community.
“No individual student is expected to do that alone. And one student really cannot finish this alone. And that’s really the point. It’s every student that’s contributing a step and together each of those steps become something more extraordinary... that’s actually part of what we want our students to take away.”
Jon Pillon, Special Assignment Teacher Student Well-Being with GECDSB, says the goal is for the students to collectively finish Terry’s Marathon of Hope.
“We know that Terry ran a marathon for 143 consecutive days covering about 5,300 kilometres. But if every student on site walks the equivalent of 12 laps, then we finish what essentially Terry had remaining on his Marathon of Hope. So if each student walks 12 laps, that covers basically the distance from Thunder Bay to Vancouver or roughly the 3,000 kilometres that were remaining.”
Pillon says they have a range of guest speakers.
“We are very honoured that we’ll have Fred Fox as one of our keynote speakers, but not only Fred Fox, but we’ll also have the captain of the Canadian Paralympic hockey team, Tyler McGregor, and one of our local medical oncologists, Dr. Caroline Hamm, who works with the Terry Fox Research Institute here in the City of Windsor, all there to speak to our students that day to provide them some guidance and some insight.”
Following the event, participating students will be encouraged to take what they have learned back to their schools.
Representatives from the Windsor International Film Festival will also join the event, with prizes donated by the festival and the Terry Fox Foundation to be awarded to participating students.