Our First Step …
When Heidi passed away we, her family established a memorial fund to collect money to fulfill a dream that Heidi hoped would one day come to life.
After being diagnosed in 2013 Heidi became involved with and worked alongside her peers, the InPower Breast Cancer Support group and Physio Therapists Tracy Gardikiotis and Jenna Leib. They began to dream of a Rehabilitation Facility devoted to the recovery and continued support of Breast Cancer patients. Heidi believed strongly in providing specific support towards those travelling from rural areas of our province as well as continued programming in the city.
Heidi and Tracy among many others put a lot of work into making up business plans and worked on gaining Provincial support towards the project. Unfortunately the realities of life took over Heidi’s plans as well as some of the other ladies involved and the project took a bit of a halt. But Heidi continued to talk about the importance of such a place and we knew that in her honor it would be the best place to carry on her legacy.
Since Heidi passed we have begun to work alongside the InPower group as they put in place ways to move forward with the project. The InPower group is a group in Regina and area for young women who have had a breast cancer diagnosis and are looking for strength, education, and empowerment from other women. It is run by a volunteer board and gains financial support through fundraising, donations and lots of volunteer hours from those who lend their time and skills. The women who have created and continued this group are one of the largest Breast Cancer support groups across the entire country and the work they have put in to ensure patients have support, continued physio and exercise as well as peer support counselling is nothing short of amazing.
We are happy to announce that with our financial donation will enable InPower to host it’s first Rural Saskatchewan Retreat. This will be the initial step we take in reaching our goal to lend more support throughout our province and to work towards a much bigger goal of one day making a Rehabilitation Facility a reality.
The Retreat will be open to Breast Cancer patients who are at any point of diagnosis, recovery or stage. The focus will be on Physical and Mental Health and will be administered towards the patients, their families and support systems and the community hosting. Resource people will be there to lend support and advocacy leaving the new network with the power to continue support via our website and connection pages.
We are excited to see Heidi’s dream at it’s baby steps and we all hope to honor her and her legacy through these projects. And we all dream to one day step foot in the facility that she would be so proud to have been a part of creating. Most importantly we hope to help create a web of support across our province and country for all those affected by Breast Cancer and Cancer in general to help gain better understanding, more empathy and stronger skills to lend the support needed when a diagnosis is delivered.
Heidi Clay Memorial Fund 