St. George Legion holds fundraiser for brain cancer research

The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 605 is holding a fundraiser event on Friday night in St. George for brain cancer research. The event starts at 7 p.m. at the Gaukel Memorial Community Centre.

The fundraising event is specifically raising funds for Glioblastoma brain cancer research which is an aggressive and fast-growing brain tumor.

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The organizers say the response from the community has been amazing. After an overwhelming amount of interest in the event, they changed locations from the Legion to the community centre. Many of the raffle prizes were donated by community members. The organizers tell CHCH News that they hope this event will also raise much-needed awareness.

Stacy Cornale’s husband Mike lives with Glioblastoma IDH is a condition she says not many people are aware of. “It’s very rare, you know before this happened to my husband and our family, you didn’t really hear about it.”

Leslie Hendrickson met Stacy at the legion in St. George and learned of Mike’s condition and she knew she wanted to do something. Leslie and her friend Fiona Bell teamed up and went to the executive members of the St. George Legion and presented the idea.

The turnout for the event has been overwhelming, Leslie says, “Never did I dream that we would have people begging us the night before for tickets, we’ve got people calling us even now for tickets.”

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Gary Wright lives with Glioblastoma and says more funding is needed for research, “only 2 people out of 100,000 are diagnosed with Glioblastoma out of people who do get brain tumors so for me it’s very heartwarming.”

The event is also a celebration of a well-known Canadian musician who suffered from Glioblastoma. The Tragically Hip’s lead singer Gord Downie, 53, died on Oct. 17, 2017, after a battle with brain cancer.

The event will feature Grace 2, a Tragically Hip cover band, as well as multiple Tragically Hip themed raffle and silent auction prizes.

There are going to be 600 people at the event including around 25 volunteers.