Another exciting season of Read for the Cure!

This year marked the 12th edition of Read for the Cure, a literary series to help raise funds for cancer research. Events were held across the country, in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver and, for the first time, in Montreal. Over 1,300 participants attended the series which featured award-winning Penguin Random House Canada authors such as Michael Redhill, Kim Thuy, Carol Off, Wayne Johnston and many others.

Thanks to the generosity of participants, over $150 000 were raised, that will help finance some of the most promising research into the environmental causes of cancer. The Environment-Cancer Fund at the Cancer Research Society aims to demonstrate how factors such as living and working conditions affect one’s risk of developing cancer and how it can be prevented or detected.

To date, Read for the Cure has distributed upwards of $1.62 million to some of the best Environment-Cancer Research in the country.

Read for the Cure was initiated by Toronto book club members Emily Babiak, Christine Biggar, Sara Street and Susan Culver in 2006. Their story is one many can relate to: they were all touched by cancer in one way or another; They battled it themselves, or witnessed other book club members or loved ones struggling with it. Wanting to do something about it, they partnered with Penguin Random House Canada to put together Read for the Cure which brings readers and writers together to raise money for cancer research.