EDMONTON – Instead of presents for his sixth birthday, Nathan Marsh decided he’d rather raise money for the Alberta Cancer Foundation this year.
It’s a cause the young Edmonton boy is all too familiar with already. When he was just two, his little sister developed bilateral retinal blastoma, a cancer that, sadly, claimed one of her eyes. She’s been cancer-free for about three years now.
And for the last two, the children’s mother has been doing the Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer. It’s an event her son is still a little too young to participate in, but that hasn’t stopped him from trying to get involved.
“He was always wanting to help raise money and ride with mom and those kinds of things, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when he wanted to do his own ride,” said his mom, Allison Marsh.
Recently, the six-year-old spent three hours riding 21 laps around his neighbourhood, for a total of 23 kilometres – an impressive feat, especially considering he’d only learned to ride a two-wheeler a couple weeks before.
Get daily National news
“So he hadn’t had this training wheels off for very long, so it was certainly good practice for him when he rode his bike around the block that many times,” his mom added.
Through his efforts, the young boy ended up raising just over $1,900 for the Alberta Cancer Foundation, and inspiring others along the way.
“It makes you feel really good and optimistic about the future…when we’ve got little kids like this,” said Myka Osinchuk, CEO of the Alberta Cancer Foundation. “It makes us all want to be better.”
“As soon as we saw the story, we decided we were going to make him an honourary rider in the Ride to Conquer Cancer,” she added, after giving him a coveted yellow and black jersey.
Nathan said that he “wanted to raise money for kids that are sick,” and that it felt good to do it. He also said he’d do the ride again, and it seems that he may have inspired his little sister to do the same.
“She said that she wants to do her own ride to conquer cancer for her birthday next year,” said their mom, “so we’ll see how that goes.”
Comments