By Desmond Devnich (Contributer) – Email
UFV students seek to raise more than funds.
In an effort to raise spirit and awareness, the University of the Fraser Valley Student Life department is organizing an event for students, faculty, and the community that will encourage more students to stand up, speak out, and advocate for the Canadian Cancer Society cause. On Tuesday, March 29 at 11:00 a.m., Raising Courage will bring together opportunities to join a Relay for Life team, purchase a live daffodil or lapel pin, and meet the local authors of Choosing to Smile, the story of three women fighting for positivity. Students can also share some popcorn and punch, and help create a mural that asks the question, “What would you like to say to cancer?”
Student volunteers will be selling live daffodils and the popular daffodil lapel pins in support of the Canadian Cancer Society. Many of them have been touched by cancer and by UFV International academic adviser Michelle Rickaby’s story, which is included in Choosing to Smile.
Not every student has faced cancer – why Choosing to Smile? The book Choosing to Smile is more than the typical cancer story. It doesn’t begin with cancer and it doesn’t end with cancer. It is the story of Glenda Standeven, Michelle Rickaby, and Julie Houlker, three ordinary women who decided to do the extraordinary. They started a global movement for people who choose to smile despite the adversities they faced in the past or are still facing today. Every minute of every day people around the world are facing universal struggles such as illness, divorce, the death of a loved one, financial concerns, addictions, and many other obstacles, but how we cope with these challenges is a choice. People can live with bitterness, disappointment, and regret, or they can choose to smile as each hardship encountered becomes a lesson in appreciation.
For me, fighting back is a personal matter. I feel the pain of cancer every day. My grandfather, a beloved Alberta minister, died at the hands of cancer at the age of 39. Today, my favourite aunt and high school English teacher, Denise Graham, is battling breast cancer for the second time. I often refer to myself as a poor university student and feel upset that I cannot give large amounts of money to an agency working to find a cure for cancer. Utilizing my skills as an event planner, I have designed Raising Courage as a chance for all “poor university students” in the Fraser Valley to collect their small change and make a big difference in the fight against cancer. Discovering a cure for cancer is so close! I can almost feel the freedom it will bring those who are oppressed by the disease. At this event we won’t simply be raising funds, we’ll be raising courage.
Raising Courage will be held from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 29, in the University of the Fraser Valley theatre foyer at 45635 Yale Road in Chilliwack. Questions should be directed to desmond.devnich@ufv.ca.
