The website for the Kelly Shires Foundation
Our mission
Our mission is to provide financial assistance to women/men in these situations in order to make their fight with cancer a little less challenging.
How do we raise funds ?
The “Randonnée des Neiges de Kelly Shires contre le Cancer du Sein” holds an annual snowmobile female only ride. Our first adventure in Quebec was in March of 2006. The funds are provided by our participants’ fundraisings and our sponsors. The third edition of the “Randonnée des Neiges” will take place at the Esterel Resort, in the Laurentians, on Saturday February 23rd 2008.
History
In the prime of her life, things could not have seemed any better. Kelly Shires, at 34 was happily married, was expecting her first child and was a successful business owner. What more could she ask for - the future was looking bright! Then tragedy struck, Christmas of 1996 Kelly found a lump on her breast. She immediately had it looked at to learn that she had breast cancer. Kelly was faced with continuous surgeries, the termination of her pregnancy, the loss of their business and ongoing chemotherapy.
Through those years and facing many challenges, Kelly had proven to be a very strong woman with a big heart. Her experiences had given her a new outlook on life and she decided that she wanted to help others diagnosed with breast cancer that may be facing many of the same challenges!
The idea to develop a Trust Fund to assist patients with breast cancer all started from a conversation with a great friend. The concept was born and the planning for the First Annual Kelly Shires Breast Cancer Snow Run For Fun was underway. The Kelly Shires Breast Cancer Snow Run For Fun is a snowmobile ride, which raises money for The Snow Run Trust Fund. This Trust Fund has been set up to assist newly diagnosed women with expenses that extended health care programs do not cover. Kelly wanted the fundraiser to have the theme of “Women helping Women” which seemed to be a perfect fit with the sport of snowmobiling as Kelly was an avid snowmobiler and the numbers of female snowmobilers continues to climb.
The first Snow Run was held in early 2000, in Ontario, and today we are proud to hold our 9th event in Ontario. Kelly’s dream to hold events in other Canadian provinces was realized in March of 2006 with our first Quebec event.
We are also very proud to announce that in 2007 the foundation surpassed one million dollars in funds raised.