With gratitude this Volunteer Week
April 15, 2015
It’s National Volunteer Week and, across the country, Ovarian Cancer Canada is saying thank you. Our team is privileged to work with volunteers who commit their time and efforts toward overcoming ovarian cancer.
Sometimes this means ensuring that a newly diagnosed woman knows that she is not alone, or sharing a personal story to inspire the next generation of healthcare professionals and scientists. In other cases, it’s planning an event to raise funds, further awareness, or both. It could also mean assembling thousands of awareness ribbons, running information tables or ensuring a special event runs like clockwork.
The volunteers of Ovarian Cancer Canada bring their unique strengths to everything they do. They do it for their mothers, partners, sisters, daughters and dearest friends, as well as others who they have yet to meet. They do it because in an estimated 17,000 women nationwide are living with ovarian cancer and some 35 million Canadians need to know more about this disease.
Volunteers both inspire and enable the work of Ovarian Cancer Canada. They activate communities in city centres and the remotest regions of the country, carrying the organization and our mission far and wide.
Here is thanking you on behalf of the staff team and national Board of Directors.
Inspiring dedication
Honours for the 2014 Peggy Truscott Award were shared by two outstanding volunteers, Helen Martin and Valerie Giesbrecht.
Helen Martin
Helen devotes much of her time to increasing awareness at conferences and through Ovarian Cancer Canada’s Knowledge is Power sessions and the Survivors Teaching Students® program. She also leads her team Helen’s Heroes in the Ovarian Cancer Canada Walk of Hope, raising more than $50,000 over the past five years.
“Volunteering allowed me to step outside of my own situation, an experience that is both distracting and immensely healing,” says Helen. “When plans to volunteer are made, we move forward in a positive way, with something to look forward to, showing others we are not about to give up.”
Valerie Giesbrecht
Through her own volunteerism, Valerie has spoken with a wide variety of audiences about ovarian cancer. She used the Award as an opportunity to focus her efforts, making it her mission to provide support to women who are living with the disease.
“The Peggy Truscott Award challenged me to reflect on everything I’ve done. So I asked myself where I was needed the most,” says Valerie. “Today I am treasuring my time with people who I’ve met along the way and recognizing what a privilege it is to share their journeys as their friend. The most important thing to me is to give back and keep giving hope, because we are all in this together.”
Nominations open soon: Peggy Truscott Award of Hope
The Peggy Truscott Award of Hope celebrates and acknowledges the dedication of an individual or group who volunteers to support our shared goal of overcoming ovarian cancer.
This award is named after Peggy Truscott, founder of the Ovarian Cancer Canada Walk of Hope. Peggy’s commitment to and involvement with the organization is the stuff of legends. In bringing about the first ever Walk, she brought together women and families touched by ovarian cancer to form a community of support that today reaches people from coast to coast.
Her legacy is carried forward by the powerhouse volunteers who have also made Ovarian Cancer Canada’s mission their very own.
Do you know someone who exemplifies dedication, support of others and leadership in their volunteering efforts? Just imagine how meaningful your nomination would be to them. You can get started right away. Completed forms for the 2015 Peggy Truscott Award of Hope are being accepted from April 20 to May 29, 2015.
Peggy Truscott Award of Hope nomination form