To the Board of Directors,
Thank you for supporting Craig’s Cause Pancreatic Cancer Society during this past year of milestones! Each year we challenge ourselves to do more to assist Canadians diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, their families, and the health professionals in this field- 2017 was no exception. With your support; we took on more events, new education initiatives and supported more patients.
Our focus remains, as always, on our service pillars of: Awareness, Education, Research, and Support. Thanks to you, we made strides in all these areas.
Awareness: We held seven provincial awareness events from Newfoundland to Ontario and the participants exceeded our expectations in both registration and donations!
Our Light Up the Lake 5K event is quickly becoming a participant favourite and sold out in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as in PEI and Newfoundland- both events in their first year!
100% of the public donations brought in through these events — a total of over $42,000 — will go to our four service pillars: Awareness, Education, Support, and Research.
We continue to be committee members for both the World Pancreatic Cancer Coalition and the World Pancreatic Cancer Day Committee to impact awareness on a global scale.
Education: In April 2017, we brought together health professionals for the first Atlantic Canada Pancreatic Cancer Symposium. We offered them a chance to learn about the latest findings in fields related to research (medical oncology, surgical oncology, basic science and others). In addition, they will have a chance to find collaboration opportunities with other researchers so that the most effective and efficient progress can be attained. Also discussed current treatment and care practices and opportunities for improvement in their province in terms of treatment and care.
Together with clinicians and researchers at the Nova Scotia Health Authority, Craig's Cause Pancreatic Cancer Society is building a Knowledge Bank for pancreatic cancer. This involves developing a banking facility for tissue samples and biomarker information from patients, that will enable researchers to develop new diagnostic tests and treatment strategies in the future. This Pancreatic Cancer Knowledge Bank will be the first in the country and will be a huge step towards creating a collaborative approach in the Maritimes, for early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of pancreatic cancer.
Our Healthcare Outreach Education Initiative was also a focus in 2017. We hired a dedicated staff person to oversee this project and we are excited to announce the presentations to health professionals begin this month. The goal of this initiative is to refresh the knowledge of family physicians, emergency medicine physicians, nurse practitioners and pharmacists so that they are better able to recognize pancreatic cancer in the early stages. This early diagnosis, and subsequent referral to specialists, will give patients far more treatment options and, ultimately, save lives.
Research: Our partnerships with the Beatrice Hunter Research Institute provided funding for two top ranked research grants totalling $22,837, in 2017. The funding we established through a partnership with the Canadian Cancer Society has supported pancreatic cancer projects which total $388,080 for 2017-2018. All of the research projects we provide funding for can be found on our website www.craigscause.ca .
Support: We continue to see increases in Canadian patients and their families taking advantage of our support services. This includes the toll-free support line, Ask a Doctor email inquiry service and applications for patient financial support grants.
Our Society was able to distribute $19,000 in Patient Support Financial Grants this past year. These grants help ease the financial strain patients face. Grants were given out to patients from British Columbia to Nova Scotia.
The remarkable gains that were achieved this past year were made possible by your support. Thank you for being on this journey with us to improve the lives of all Canadians impacted by pancreatic cancer.
Thank you for your partnership,
Sincerely,
Stephanie Condon-Oldreive Founder/Director