Spotlight: Winnipeg volunteer dedicated to supporting her ‘teal sisters’
September 26, 2019
“Peggy and I would have made great team mates. And we still have work to do!”, said Tamara Peabody while accepting the 2019 Peggy Truscott Award at the Ovarian Cancer Canada Walk of Hope in Winnipeg on September 8th.
Tamara Peabody (second from the right); Mapy Villaudy, Vice President of Marketing, Communications and Development (second from the left); and Cindy Sanchez (left) and Christa Slatnik (right), co-chairs of the Walk in Winnipeg
Her statement couldn’t be more true. These two women have much in common – especially their desire to create a community and network for women diagnosed and living with ovarian cancer.
Following her ovarian cancer diagnosis in 2000, Peggy Truscott became quite the force and catalyst for change and community. She wanted to connect and empower women affected by the disease through support and raising awareness. She wanted to create an initiative – an event – that would bring women and their families and friends together – and so she rallied folks to join her and did just that.
She created the very first Walk in 2002 to bring women and their families and friends together. From a spark to a fire, the event grew and now the Ovarian Cancer Canada Walk of Hope takes place in 35 communities across the country each year and is attended by thousands of Canadians.
Created in Peggy’s honour, the Peggy Truscott Award of Hope recognizes an individual or group for their outstanding volunteer contributions to the missions of Ovarian Cancer Canada. Like Peggy, Tamara’s accomplishment followed soon after her initial diagnosis, in 2015. In only a couple of years, Tamara has become a non-stop and radical giver, supporter, and mobilizer for other women diagnosed with this disease.
Tamara has served on Walk committees; organized the “survivors’ area” and memorial tables at Walk events; has also organized outreach meetings, brunches, and other events for women living with the disease and has also organized “goodie bags” for women attending research conferences. She’s facilitated the sharing of disease and other information via webinars and chat groups for women diagnosed; has hosted and led women on tours of research centres; and has been an active and contributing member to Ovarian Cancer Canada’s online community OVdialogue since its beginning. More recently, she welcomed and encouraged Cécile Hryhorczuk, herself living with ovarian cancer, as she passed through Winnipeg during her bike ride across Canada this past summer to raise funds and awareness for the disease.
These are just a few of Tamara’s many contributions.
“I just want women to find the support they need, to have the information they need, when they need it. There is lots of support for them out there, and a strong network of our ‘teal sisters’ across the country they can meet online,” she says. “I want to bring people together because we are better, together.”
We thank Tamara Peabody for carrying forward the legacy of support and community that Peggy Truscott started and that continues to be an inspiration.