The Can Too Foundation marks 21 years of support
Under the motto ‘Challenge yourself. Challenge cancer,’ the Can Too Foundation serves a dual purpose. Based in North Sydney with various ‘pods’ across the city and Northern Beaches, participants join training programs and challenges to keep fit and healthy.
Programs are primarily related to running and swimming, including expert accredited coaching, with goal events of various distances following completion of training. Whether building confidence or setting themselves a new challenge, participants make a meaningful difference beyond achieving their personal goals.
When signing up to a training program, both a personal goal and a fundraising target is set. All funds raised go towards cancer research, directly funding the projects of early-career researchers.
Lisa Hresc, Can Too Foundation chief executive officer, says the focus on early-career cancer researchers stems from the fact that while they are ‘quite innovative,’ many do not get funding.
“It’s really tricky for them at that stage in their career,” Lisa says. “It’s almost like we are supporting the next generation of cancer research and who knows what will come from that. It’s that catalyst and that jumpstart that they need.”
One such cancer researcher, professor David Gallego Ortega, was funded by CanToo early on in his career. David attributes the funding he received from the foundation in 2012 to kickstarting his career. He’s now a leading breast cancer researcher and biomedical engineer.
CanToo was founded by Annie Crawford, who lost her father to lung cancer, and wanted to conjoin her passion for running and fitness with supporting prevention and treatment.
Lisa says that many of CanToo’s program participants have been ‘touched by cancer’ in some way, including cancer survivors joining the swimming and running programs. “It gives them something to focus on, to feel like they’re doing something, but also in their health spectrum, they’re preventing as much as they can by staying healthy.”
“We’re about health promotion, but also about research,” she adds.
The challenge setting from both a personal and fundraising achievement lens creates a strong sense of motivation for participants to really push themselves.
Lisa says some participants paint a fingernail in CanToo’s signature colour, orange, when completing a race such as a marathon or the annual event The Big Swim from Palm Beach to Whale Beach.
“If you’re halfway through and finding it tough, you look at the fingernails and remember why you’re running (or swimming), and it just pushes you through,” says Lisa.
She says CanToo is ‘such a strong community.’
“It’s one of those unique sorts of programs where people will just connect and then that’s it: They’ve got mates for life and they’re doing stuff they love,” says Lisa proudly. “And that’s the difference with CanToo, you’re not out there on your own.”
Over the years, 22,000 participants have participated in CanToo programs. With their 21st birthday just around the corner, CanToo has funded 161 research projects and raised over $35 million.
In honour of the big birthday, CanToo is hosting a celebratory picnic in Centennial Park on 13 September, open to anyone who would like to attend.
The Summer Ocean Swim is the foundation’s largest annual program and sign-ups are encouraged early. For more information, visit CanToo’s website.