Hundreds of Edmonton-area residents will stroll through St. Albert bearing coloured lanterns this Saturday as part of a national fundraiser for blood cancer research.
About 500 people will gather at St. Albert Catholic High this Oct. 28 for the 2023 Light The Night Edmonton charity walk. Organized by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada (LLSC), the walk is one of many being held across Canada this month in support of blood cancer research.
This is the first time that Light The Night has been held in person since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first time that its Edmonton edition has been held in St. Albert, said St. Albert walk co-ordinator Paige Bontus. While the Edmonton walk usually happens in Hawrelak Park, Light The Night organizers asked SACHS to host it in St. Albert this year due to the school’s decade-long participation in it.
“It’s kind of cool that it has come full circle in that we’re able to host the walk in our 10th year of participating in it,” Bontus said.
Bontus said Light The Night sees participants go on a five kilometre walk at night to raise money for blood cancer research. Participants light their way using lanterns of different colours: white if they are a blood cancer survivor, red if they are supporters of a survivor, and gold if they walk in memory of someone lost to cancer.
“It’s pretty inspiring to see all the lanterns,” Bontus said.
Bontus said this year’s walk starts at SACHS at 5 p.m. Participants will march to the city’s grain elevators and Lacombe Park before returning to SACHS for free soup, hot chocolate, and candy.
SACHS tradition
Over 155,000 Canadians have some form of blood cancer, with someone in Canada diagnosed with it every 24 minutes, reports the LLSC.
Bontus said she will be carrying a red lantern in this year’s walk in honour of Maria Lovsin, who was a student of hers at SACHS 10 years ago.
“She was in my phys-ed class and she let me know one day that she might not be able to participate because she was low energy because she had just had a treatment the day before,” Bontus recalled.
Bontus said she was taken aback to learn that Lovsin had leukemia. Wanting to help, she rallied staff and students at SACHS to join Lovsin’s family for that year’s Light The Night walk. The school community has participated in the walk ever since under the banner Team SACHSSTRONG. (Lovsin’s leukemia is now in remission, and she is attending university in Australia. Her story is featured on the Light The Night website.)
SACHS librarian Leanne Oake said she will carry a red lantern during this weekend’s walk to honour her father, Dan Mount, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma several years ago. It was a challenging time for Oake, as she had lost her mother-in-law to cancer just a few years before.
“It was kind of like, ‘Here we go again, another adventure in cancer.’”
Oake said Mount’s health has greatly improved since he started treatment — in fact, he recently returned from a trip to Spain. While they usually do the walk together, Oake said her dad might sit this year’s event out due to the weather.
Bontus said Team SACHSSTRONG aims to raise $10,000 this year to celebrate its 10th year in the walk, and was about halfway there as of Oct. 24. The Edmonton walk overall was at 99 per cent of its $75,000 goal as of 5 p.m. Oct. 24.
Bontus said anyone who wants to join the walk or donate to it should visit lightthenight.ca.
