Skip to content

Miners for Cancer dig up $150K for Cancer Centre

Charitable organization Miners for Cancer made its largest one-time donation yet to the Northeastern Cancer Centre with a cheque for $150,000 to help pay for radiation therapy suites.
211014_JM_miners_cancer
Members with Miners for Cancer, left, donated $150,000 to the Northeastern Cancer Centre Tuesday to pay for new radiation therapy suites. Photo by Jonathan Migneault.
Charitable organization Miners for Cancer made its largest one-time donation yet to the Northeastern Cancer Centre with a cheque for $150,000 to help pay for radiation therapy suites.

The organization has donated nearly $1 million to the Northeastern Cancer Centre and the Northern Ontario Cancer Foundation since it was founded in 1996.

Wayne Tonelli, president and co-founder of Miners for Cancer, said he and his colleagues started the organization when the Inco workforce was going through a difficult time in the mid-1990s.

The price of nickel was down at the time and there were fears of layoffs.

To boost morale, they started hosting baseball tournaments.

“We found we were starting to make money with these events that we were hosting,” Tonelli said.

Instead of keeping the money, Tonelli and the other event organizers started Miners for Cancer, to donate the funds to local cancer research and treatment efforts.

Tuesday's gift will allow the Northeast Cancer Centre to modify a space to accommodate a new CT simulator, a scanner used to detect tumours and plan a patient's radiation therapy.

“Our current scanner is due to be replaced with a new scanner with even greater capabilities than what we have now,” said Dr. Andrew Pearce, a radiation oncologist with the centre.

Cancer Care Ontario will pay for the new scanner, but the $150,000 donation from Miners for Cancer will cover the costs to bring in new radiation shielding and infection control barriers to accommodate the new CT simulator later in the year.

“We really recognize and appreciate what the community brings to us,” said Natalie Aubin, administrative director with the Northeast Cancer Centre.

Comments

Verified reader

If you would like to apply to become a verified commenter, please fill out this form.




Jonathan Migneault

About the Author: Jonathan Migneault

Read more