April 24th, Breast Cancer Awareness Breakfast, Abbotsford

April 24th was a very big and important day for us. Julie, Glenda and I went to the South Abbotsford Mennonite Church for the Annual Breast Cancer Awareness breakfast. The venue was well decorated with trees, plants, ribbons and beautiful centerpieces on each table. As women and some men started to enter, each table filled with guests. The Spirit Abreast Dragon Boat team attended as did local politicians guests and supporters. I'm sure there were more than 100 attendees.

The guest speaker was Dr. Frances Wong, Radiation Oncologist and Chief Physician at the Abbotsford Cancer Centre who spoke about the Navigation Program. To read more about the Navigator program click here.

We were also scheduled as Keynote speakers. We started off by showing our music video, which is always a great way to boost the spirit in the room. We had something in store for the audience that tied to that video. Glenda spoke first then I read a section from my story, and Julie was the featured speaker. She told some of her story, her current struggles and what she hoped for her long future. When she was done she directed all of the audience to look at the papers in front of them which included the lyrics to the "Choosing to Smile" song. We invited everyone to stand and then played the song. Everyone joined in or attempted to sing along. It was a real hoot! For the first 50 people who purchased a book they got a CD with the song so they could practice singing in their car. Hopefully a few people practiced belting out their own version.

Eagles Hall Abbotsford

At 5pm we had another event in Abbotsford. It was a public event at the Eagles Hall. This was a book reading. We set up the room and arranged to show a couple of our videos. We had a smaller crowd than in the morning but a nice intimate group. Glenda was the emcee for our event while the three of us took our chairs at the front of the audience. Each of us read from our stories to share a humorous moment. It was great fun. We took questions from the attendees. Too bad we didn't have the equipment to play the song so that crowd got out of singing our song with us. Maybe next time.