by Tara Clow
A Moncton, New Brunswick man is hoping his thumb will help to raise $100,000 for cancer research.
Twenty-year-old Quinn Strang, who battled the disease, is hitchhiking across the country raising funds.
He was first diagnosed with cancer when he was 15 years old.
“I was diagnosed with stage four cancer. I had Ewing Sarcoma in my left femur, and it spread to my lungs and lymph nodes. I didn’t catch it till pretty late, so I probably shouldn’t be here today. After a gruelling nine-month battle involving chemotherapy and radiation, I was declared cancer-free. But I relapsed in grade 12, and then I had to get a femur transplant,” Strang explained.
Following that, he was valedictorian at his graduation at Bernice MacNaughton High School in Moncton, where he told his story.
Three years later, on May 17, Strang started his cross-Canada journey in Newfoundland. He plans to follow the same route as Terry Fox did on his Marathon of Hope, hitching for a ride along the way.
He arrived in Nova Scotia on Tuesday morning, after hitching ten to twelve rides. “I’ve met some really amazing people. I got bunkered up with a couple in Newfoundland last night. They drove me all the way to Port aux Basques. They fed me, and they let me pet their dog. I mean, that’s the whole reason why I’m doing this, too. In the whole country, there are just beautiful people all around, and I’m trying to showcase that as well,” Strang expressed.
Strang’s goal is to dip his foot into the Pacific Ocean
“I have a propeller hat on and a sign, so I hope that makes me look more friendly, and people are more keen to pick me up, I find. Also, I’ve noticed that if you smile, you’re more likely to get picked up,” Strang explained.
He hopes to complete his cross-country journey within a month, but without a set schedule and not knowing when he’ll get picked up and how far they’ll take him, he is just taking it day by day at this point.
“You just take it as it comes. I kind of live my life with a go with the flow philosophy. I just kind of see where the day takes me. I do try to set minor goals for the day. I’m on the road for 10 to 12 hours. So I just kind of see how far I can get. It really is a gamble. You could be waiting two hours for a five-minute drive, or you could be waiting five minutes for a two-hour drive, right? So I do kind of set little goals though,” Strang said.
His $100,000 goal is based on the number of people in Moncton. He wants to raise $1 for every person in Moncton, similar to Terry Fox’s goal of $1 for every person in Canada.
Quinn has been in remission for almost 3 years, and his family says he wants to give back to the IWK hospital that did so much for him, along with the Terry Fox Foundation for research in the hopes of finding a cure.
A GoFundMe page has been set up, and as of 2 pm Tuesday, over $11,000 had already been raised.
