Snowmobile friends
Alia Brown and Jody McKay organized the 1st Tug Hill Snow Run
in March of 2005. The ride was started in memory of friend
Kelly Shires, who passed away very early in life from Breast
Cancer. On a promise to Kelly in 2004 the girls would bring
a ride like hers to the US like that she had started in Canada
7 years ago...
The mission of the ride in Canada is to provide
support to women in need of financial assistance for treatments
and more. So the same mission was brought the Snow Runs but
has expanded to help men and women that are diagnosed.
Kelly's
battle did end in October of 2004, prior to the March 2005
ride... But the ride was a success in her memory raising close
to $2,500 and donated to the Roswell Cancer Institute of NY.
"We
will ride every year to honor those that fight their battles
everyday and to those that we will never forget, the true survivors
like Kelly and so many others..."
"We both share
struggles with Breast Cancer in our own families and this event
helps us share with others, a way to help those in need. It
is a way of bringing people closer together on a community
level, as many of us know, this is a disease that affects more
than just the person with the diagnosis.
Without this event
we would never have met some of the wonderful people we now
know today."