CIBC Run for the Cure raises $23.4 million nationally

News Release
CBCF

Fifteen years ago, a small group of volunteers organized the first Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure event in Toronto’s High Park and launched an initiative that would become the largest, single-day, volunteer-led, national event to support the breast cancer cause. Today, in 50 communities from Victoria to St. John’s, more than 170,000 people walked or ran to raise $23.4 million (as of end of Run day) to fund critically important breast cancer research and community education and awareness programs.
Among the participants was Andrea Thomas-Hill, organizer of the original Run in 1992. Now a resident of Vancouver, Thomas-Hill participated in that city’s Run alongside 13,000 other participants today.
“It feels great to see the Run reach 15 years,” says Thomas-Hill. “There were just 800 of us participating that first year and while we hoped that the event would go on, we never dreamed it would become so big or fund so many valuable research projects over time.”
Funds raised through the Run enable the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation to focus on the emerging area of primary prevention research and understand the risk factors for breast cancer, with the long-term goal of building knowledge about how to stop the disease before it starts.
“This year represents an amazing milestone for the Run and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation,” says Harold Kingston, National Board Chair, Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. “With the help of today’s participants, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation can fund research and awareness programs to determine how and why the disease develops and spreads, how to treat it most effectively, and how to improve the quality of life for survivors.”
Kingston stresses that, although national in scope, the Run is a grass-roots, locally-based event that inspires and mobilizes communities to take collective action towards creating a future without breast cancer:
“Seventy-five per cent of the net funds raised through the Run stay in the regions that generated them to support local research and educational initiatives, while twenty-five per cent fund national research programs,” he says.

Areas of current research include:
- the impact of diet on the risk of breast cancer
- the effect of environmental factors, such as pesticides and other chemicals, in the development of breast cancer
- the impact of a breast cancer diagnosis on a relationship
- a simpler way to treat breast cancer using small metal seeds mplanted in a patient’s breast
Research is making a difference. As a result of research, earlier detection is possible and treatment is more effective, leading to more and more women and men surviving. Breast cancer survivors are experiencing a better quality of life than in the past. And since 1993, the number of new breast cancer cases diagnosed among Canadians each year has stabilized, and the number of deaths from breast cancer has declined steadily.