A Stratford man will embark on a week-long, over 250-km run to Tobermory, to raise money for local cancer care on Monday.
Samm Simon said the run is in support of his wife, as he tries to create hope out of a helpless situation, following her diagnosis of Stage 4 cancer.
Simon said they will raise funds for the three local organizations that provide his wife with treatment.
"We decided to do a run to try and make something of a terrible situation," he said. "We're going to raise money for the three organizations that my wife deals with: one is the Wellspring Stratford Cancer Support Centre, the other is London Verspeeten Family Cancer Centre and then the Stratford General Hospital."
He'll embark on the run Monday with friends, staying in an RV and running the equivalent of a marathon a day.
Simon said prior to coming up with this plan a year ago, he wasn't much of a distance runner.
"Before training for this (my longest run) was maybe five kilometres," he said. "I'm on the taper now, so my running coach, he sets the whole program. My longest training run would be 70 to 100 miles in a week. So we're putting some mileage on the old feet."
Their route will take them through Listowel, Hanover, Wiarton and other communities. You can follow their progress on Simon's webpage of his Facebook page.
Before even departing, he's already cleared his initial fundraising goal. The campaign has raised over $20,000 as of Monday, but he hopes the number keeps going.
"When we first started out we were hoping to give each charity $1,000," said Simon. "We want to raise as much as we can, if I could ever get it to $30,000 I'd be thrilled... In this day and age, we know it's no easy with the economy, so we appreciate everything."
Simon says people are welcome to come out and say hello to him during the run. His team will also be collecting donations.
You can donate through the GoFundMe page.
