Jamie MacPherson of 100 Mile House wanted to help find a cure for cancer – and her goal led her to cycling 800 kilometres at the 2016 Cops for Cancer: Tour de Coast team, where she raised $18,068, placing her among its top fundraisers.
A primary care paramedic with the BC Ambulance Service and a volunteer with 100 Mile House Fire Rescue, MacPherson’s team consisted of 35 police officers and two paramedics who cycled for nine consecutive days.
Following months of arduous training, Tour de Coast riders joined more than 100 other law enforcement and emergency services personnel across the province cycling in Cops for Cancer fundraisers.
While the Tour de Coast webpage shows her funds at about $2,000 lower, MacPherson says that’s because she did a group event with her team that was later split between them at $1,000 each, and another $1,000 of her own donations from a full year as the local fire department’s safety officer, neither of which are included yet.
Tour De Coast raised a total of $484,679 this year for the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS), and all of it is earmarked for pediatric cancer research, programs and services, she explains.
“It’s very touching. Even being down there for the tour and meeting some more of these kids who are battling cancer and some of the stories just breaks your heart.”
MacPherson says it “definitely hits close to home” as one of her team’s support group members has a two-year-old who was recently diagnosed with leukaemia.
This year’s Tour also had an opportunity to stop at BC Children’s Hospital, where she met the little boy, and they gave him a member’s necklace and jersey, she adds.
“There definitely wasn’t a dry eye in the house for that one – neither the Vancouver police riders nor any of the other riders in the tour.”
McPherson participated in her first Tour de Coast last year as a volunteer ambulance staff member, before deciding to ride in the 2016 Tour.
“The main support program is Camp Goodtimes, which is a summer camp for kids supported by doctors and nurses. [Children with cancer] can actually get their chemo while they are at camp. So, normally when they are super sick they can only get to stay in hospital – whereas now, they can actually have a little bit of time at camp being a kid.”
At a special dinner on the last evening of the Tour, she was one of four riders who were presented with a CCS Volunteer Leadership division award for their individual roles saving the life of a police officer who suffered a heart attack at last year’s tour.
“The fellow who went into [cardiac] arrest, who we revived … had J.P. Spence from the Squamish First Nation actually make four drums – one for each of us – and it is hand painted, handcrafted and absolutely beautiful.”
After all this, will MacPherson participate again next year?
“Absolutely! I don’t know if I will be a rider next year, or if I will join the support crew again.”
While it is clearly a lot of work to train, fundraise and then go to Vancouver for a couple of weeks, MacPherson says the emotional strain meeting in person all the children and adults living with cancer is even tougher.
“I don’t know if I could do that every single year … so I will probably alternate volunteering with years where I actually step up and ride. But I will definitely be involved with the tour.”
A few 100 Mile House RCMP members told her they were inspired by her dedication, and may enter next year – and she hopes they do.
“It definitely does get tiring, but I’m used to training alone … where I didn’t have that Peloton, ‘Tour De France’ kind of drafting with another rider.”
(Peloton is where riders in a group save energy by riding in a special, close formation for “drafting” or “slipstreaming.”)
“So, it translated very well from biking on my own for low kilometres [to] joining a Peloton where we could go faster, and we could go farther, and it wasn’t as tiring as biking alone would be.”
MacPherson says this teamwork was also helpful and motivating through the hands they placed on each other’s backs to help them along and up the hills, and all the words of encouragement they shared.
