I'm taking on the Tour de Cure

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, it has been almost 6 years since we sadly lost Daryl to prostate cancer. His life tragically ended on June 17th, 2017 at 59. Too soon. Forever missed and loved by me, his wife of 33 years, our beautiful children, Patrick (Laura), Stephanie (DJ) and Hilary. Daryl missed walking Stephanie down the aisle on her wedding day in 2018. He wasn't there to celebrate Patrick and Laura's marriage last summer. He is not here to embrace Hilary's successes and meet her future love. Sadly too, he will never know his precious, sweet grandbabies, Olivia and Rosie with two more on the way

Cancer took Daryl from us. His legacy of greatness however lives on in his family and friends. We have all gained strength and wisdom from the ideals Daryl lived by and instilled in those close. Daryl would want us to fully embrace living and Fight On.

As part of this journey, I want to honour Daryl and continue his mission to raise funds, awareness and provide HOPE for those living with cancer.

I have committed to ride in this August's Tour de Cure, successor to the Ride to Conquer Cancer that we did in 2017 through Daryl's Heidelberg Hope team. That was a tremendous success in so many respects. As you may recall Daryl, in searching for a treatment alternative to help him found a remarkable new therapy that had never been used or researched extensively outside of Germany. Daryl's vision was to bring it here to North America. It is now being researched in every major North American cancer centre - Radionuclide Therapy or RnT will eventually be the fourth weapon next to chemo, radiation and immunotherapy.

The money that we raised of over $2 million through the team was further leveraged to over $32 million, for a new building at TRIUMF / UBC. The new facility is one of only a few locations in the world that can produce the necessary isotopes and radiopharmaceuticals necessary to pursue this new treatment alternative. Daryl would be very proud of the progress and proud of all of you who supported the initiative six years ago.

The Tour de Cure will be held the weekend of August 26-27th. I have joined the Blood, Sweat & Cures, and we are raising money by riding 200 km over two days. We are raising money specifically to support the Centre for Lymphoid Cancers (CLC), but my goal is a broader one, namely to improve the outcomes for families like ours who are presented with a cancer diagnosis. The team is captained by Alex Blodgett who many of you may remember from Daryl's Heidelberg Hope team (DHH), as well as the two oncologists that run CLC, Dr Christian Steidl and Dr David Scott.

I am hoping that you will support me during my ride. Like our DHH team, Blood, Sweat & Cures is deemed an internal team, so virtually all of your donation goes to the CLC, and little is absorbed by overhead expenses. I would love to have your support as we strive to raise $800,000. Our team page is here with a more complete description of the use of proceeds, and my donation page is here

With love and gratitude for your involvement and continued support!

Fight On

Joanna xo