Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Terry Fox

Do you know Terry Fox ?

Terry Fox is a really famous guy in Canada.

He was born in 1958, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. When he was a child, he loved practising sports. Unfortunately, when he was 18 years old, doctors detected that he had cancer in his right leg, they had to amputate his leg higher than his knee. However, Terry didn't give up, he said he was lucky because his cancer had disapeared thanks to his amputation. In consequence, he made a plan to help other people who had cancer. He decided to raise one dollar per inhabitant of Canada by running across this same country. At this time, Canada counted about 24 millions inhabitants. He trained for one year before start his huge Marathon. "The Marathon of Hope" started at St. John's, Terre-Neuve. Terry ran 42 kilometers ( the distance of a typical marathon ) every day ! Once he arrived in Sudbury ( half way of the Marathon ), the race was very famous. Unfortunately, doctors discovered that his brain had cancer too. Terry had to stop to take care of himself.
The Canadian population was marked by this bad news and decided to continue this Marathon in memory of Terry. Thus, everybody continued to raise money throughout Canada. About $24.17 million was collected. Terry was really happy and proud, he accomplished his goal.
Unfortunately he died on the 28th of June, 1981. Three months later, the 13th September in 1981, took place the first Terry Fox run. More than 300 000 Canadians participated and raised $3.5 million more.
Since this time, the Terry Fox run takes place every year on the second sunday of May.
The Terry Fox school day takes place the last friday of September.
In total, more than 400 million dollars has been raised for Terry until now !

Yesterday, I did the Terry Fox run at school, it was fun !

6 comments:

Mme J. (English teacher ) said...

How sad!
I had never heard of this boy before.
His generosity and courage should be a lesson to all of us.He deserves our admiration.

Yves said...

This is a sad but great story. Thank you for letting us know about it.

Did you ran and how long?

PS: You english has improved a lot, congratulations!

Aloïs said...

I was going to make a comment about it but you did first.
So today we ran about 1 hour, but if you don' t want to run you have to walk.
You have to never stop your self!!

Aloïs said...

And he got his cancer when he was 18 and he died in 1981 when he was 22 years old.

Yves said...

Aloïs, your english has improved a lot too. Congratulations!

Niina said...

This is an excellent post, well illustrated. You write like a journalist!