Anne De Manser

Love the skin you're in

This year, my house group at school is taking on Relay For Life to raise funds for every person who’s ever heard the words: “you have cancer”. 

After losing both my parents to cancer at a young age, this is a cause close to my heart.

Whilst our donations contribute to all cancers, we are focusing particularly on skin cancer. Our school captain, Isabella , is the driving force behind our campaign, motivated by the journey her own mum has experienced in the battle against stage 4 melanoma. 

At Mortlake College we are very proud of our Sunsmart policy that ensures all students, P-12, wear hats while they are outside. We are one of a very small amount of schools that demand compliance with this at secondary level. Our Relay will not only raise funds for the Cancer Council, it will raise awareness of the need to be sun safe.

I, and several of my staff have also been affected by skin cancer. If the link below works, you can read my cancer story. maybe you'll have to cut and paste into google to find it.

https://annedemanser.blogspot.com/2013/10/please-pack-your-hat.html

We're aiming to raise at least $5000 at our relay. This is the cost of getting someone onto a cancer treatment trial. My mum was a guinea pig in one of the very early Interferon trials to treat melanoma. It prolonged her life for 2 years and importantly, provided research data for future trials. It was one of these trials that saved Isabella's mum.

The website offers a lot of high $ contribution choices. I'm not looking for big contributions, I'd just love it if everyone I know donated $5- it would add up quickly that way!