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The Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer is a powerful movement one of hope, healing, celebration and optimism where thousands of cyclists join together to raise funds and awareness in order to conquer cancer.
It is a unique fundraising event benefiting the BC Cancer Foundation, a B.C.-based charity that raises funds for the BC Cancer Agency - a province-wide, population-based cancer control organization. The funds you raise stay in B.C. and benefit cancer patients across all of British Columbia.
Funds from The Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer support groundbreaking cancer research at the BC Cancer Agency, focused on advancing new understanding of cancer with the goal of developing new therapies to extend and save more lives.
Our goal is to make sure that British Columbians continue to experience the lowest cancer incidence and mortality rates in Canada, and to realize the BC Cancer Foundation's vision of A World Free from Cancer.
The BC Cancer Foundation exists to raise funds exclusively for the BC Cancer Agency, throughout British Columbia, to support research and enhancements to patient care. In fact, we fund more cancer research in B.C. than any other charity.
When you support the BC Cancer Foundation, you become our partner in discovery, supporting groundbreaking research taking place in your own backyard at the BC Cancer Agency.
Together, we are funding and finding solutions that are having direct impacts on improvements to patient care for patients in B.C.
Since June 2009, the BC Cancer Agency has announced seven major research breakthroughs in genomics, ovarian, breast and lymphoma cancers. All of them were published in leading international peer-reviewed journals, and widely acknowledged in the global scientific community. And all of them were made possible because of the generosity of BC Cancer Foundation donors.
Philanthropy is the fuel that keeps the BC Cancer Agency’s research engine running.
The money you raise for the BC Cancer Foundation through The Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer directly funds the work of the BC Cancer Agency throughout British Columbia.
The BC Cancer Agency is a world leader in cancer research and care. It provides a comprehensive cancer control program for everyone in British Columbia, including cancer prevention, screening and early detection, diagnosis, treatment and care, patient and family support services, rehabilitation, and end-of-life care. The BC Cancer Agency's ability to conduct innovative, creative research is dependent on donor philanthropy invested in its research studies and programs.
In fact, researchers consistently tell us that they are able to leverage the funds the BC Cancer Foundation provides many times over. This means, for every initial investment by the BC Cancer Foundation, even more funds are acquired for leading-edge cancer research here in British Columbia.
Translating Dollars into Research
At the BC Cancer Agency clinicians, scientists, research technicians, post-graduate students, and support staff work side-by-side to discover the causes of cancer, better ways to prevent, detect and treat cancer and more effective ways to control and cure the disease.
Agency researchers collaborate across the province and with national and international colleagues, so new discoveries can be quickly translated into clinical applications for all patients.
Cancer care and treatment is based on the most recent, evidence-based research, proven therapies and the best new technologies.
When you sign up to ride in The Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer, your funds are automatically directed to The Priority Cancer Research Fund, which funds research into all types of cancers at the BC Cancer Agency. Or you may choose to designate to a specific cancer fund.
The Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer provides the BC Cancer Agency with funds that would not otherwise be available to start and maintain research studies and programs. The potential for this funding to change the cancer research and treatment landscape in B.C. and beyond is immense.
Research leading to new approaches to care and treatment is happening every day at the five BC Cancer Agency Centres and in the BC Cancer Agency’s research centres in Vancouver and Victoria. Here are just a few examples of what funds raised in The Ride to Conquer Cancer have supported:
Centre of Excellence for Functional Cancer Imaging: Led by the B.C. Leadership Chair in Functional Cancer Imaging, Dr. François Bénard, the Centre of Excellence is poised to become one of the top cancer imaging facilities in Canada. At its core is a PET/CT scanner, state-of-the-art technology that reveals exactly where cancer is located in a patient’s body and provides visual images of the size and spread of tumours.
The BC Cancer Agency is home to British Columbia’s only publicly-funded PET/CT scanner. In order to significantly reduce wait times and to more than double the number of patients across the province who can receive scans, the BC Cancer Foundation is investing funds from the Ride into the purchase of a second PET/CT scanner. This will more than double the Agency’s scanning capacity and will provide researchers and clinicians an invaluable tool to make more informed treatment decisions. It will reduce unnecessary surgeries and allow clinicians to see almost right away whether a treatment is effective.
BrainCare BC: BrainCare BC is a new multidisciplinary program to provide faster, easier and more effective treatment and care for brain cancer patients in B.C.
Founded and guided by Dr. Brian Toyota, neuro-surgeon and Chair of the BC Cancer Agency’s Neuro-Oncology Tumour Group, the BrainCare team aims to increase survival rates and quality of life through patient-focused research and care.
In just the last five years, the two-year survival rates for brain cancer have increased from 10 per cent to 24 per cent, mainly as a result of research discoveries and advances in technology. Dr. Toyota believes they can continue to improve patient survival, with the support of your Ride dollars.
Research Centre Sustaining Grant: One of the largest roadblocks for researchers in acquiring grant funding is the need for secure and sustainable basic funding — for salaries, lab space and equipment. Most agencies that provide peer-reviewed scientific grants do not provide funding without core support already in place, and most of those same grants cannot themselves be used for core support.
Funds from the Ride will be used to support the work of the 60 Principal Investigators at the BC Cancer Agency’s Research Centre, through a sustaining grant. It is our hope that this significant investment will be leveraged a minimum of four times, through other granting organizations — as we have historically seen.
Michael Smith Foundation Summer Studentships: With support from funds raised in the Ride, 15 university undergraduates will have the opportunity to spend a summer at the BC Cancer Agency’s Research Centre, working alongside some of the top scientists in the country. Hopefully, this experience will inspire and motivate them to decide to dedicate their lives to cancer research.
Since its inception in 2009, The Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer has raised $16.3 million in support of cancer research in B.C.
The Ride is a large-scale event. It takes significant resources and effort to promote the event, to recruit riders and to support them in their training and fundraising.
We have some very generous partners and sponsors, and a dedicated team of crew and volunteers, but there are still many expenses we must incur to ensure a successful event - everything from feeding our riders, crew and volunteers, to securing police and local support in order to ensure safety, to the rental of venues, equipment and even port-a-potties!
The North American standard for events of this nature is a 50 per cent return. At the BC Cancer Foundation, our target for these major, large-scale events is 60 per cent.
Funds from The Ride support important cancer research at the BC Cancer Agency, focused on advancing new understanding of cancer with the goal of developing new therapies to extend and save more lives.
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