For the 10th year, the Cameco Riders Touchdown for Dreams program was able to provide some joy for a female cancer patient.
Today the program surprised 16 year old Hailey Bro, who has an aggressive form of cancer in the brain stem.
Bro was given the keys to a brand new SUV from Capital Automotive Group, so she and her family could travel for medical treatments in Saskatoon and Regina.
Denita Gilmour, Bro’s mother said their old vehicle breaking down created a stressful situation. “Not having a vehicle, a safe and reliable vehicle to get there, to burrow vehicles, to call in favours to worry about the ability to get her where she needed to be made everything so much harder for us and so unexpected.”
When she first applied for the Cameco Riders Touchdown for Dream program, Bro was hoping to cover the costs to repair to her families’ old truck. “I was struggling when I saw how hard it was on them when it broke down and I already knew that it was difficult and if I could make something a little bit easier, I wanted to.”
Both Bro and Gilmour were overwhelmed when they were handed the keys, Gilmour found it hard to describe the emotions that she was feeling. “To say it’s a dream is an understatement. This is the ability to breathe for us, the ability for her to make it to appointments and safely to school and to home when she can’t make it to a full day of school, and not worry about how we’re going to do that, it’s truly amazing.”
Jonathan Huntington from Cameco says it was a tough decision selecting one applicant, but Bro’s story was very touching. “When we saw Hailey’s dream, we’ve never seen it a decade of doing this. A 16 year old girl with a stage 4 form of cancer at the stem of her brain, just wanted a car to help her family, it was touching right from the beginning. We knew we wanted to do this, and we wanted to do this quickly, she has another cancer appointment tomorrow so this was really important to get done.”
Watching Bro and her family receive the SUV was a very touching moment for Harrison and the rest of the organizers. “Seeing Hailey and her family get a new vehicle is what Cameco Touchdown for Dreams program is all about. It’s about granting dreams to women with life threatening cancer, and to see a 16 year old get a new vehicle so she can simply go to cancer treatments is really touching and emotional and wonderful for the family.”
You can help out the Cameco Riders Touchdown for Dreams program at Saturday’s Roughrider game. Pink neck warmers will be on sale with all the proceeds going towards the cause. The neck warmers will be on sale at the entrance gates throughout the stadium.
