Since the beginning. That’s how long Leah Carroll has been paddling with her Survivors Abreast teammates. Since before Facebook and Twitter. Definitely since before Instagram. Since before Peterborough’s Dragon Boat Festival even existed.
In fact, Carroll has been paddling to raise awareness of breast cancer survival for so long that she has to stop and think how it all began for her.
“I was a member of a support group of breast cancer survivors,” Carroll says. “Meredith Cosburn pitched the idea of dragon boating to our group. Two or three of us joined.
“I always thought if I could just help one person, it would make all the difference in the world,” she says, recollecting what motivated her to join a group that would train arduously all year long to compete in equally arduous races in large, somewhat unusual canoe-like boats.
The rest, as they say, is history. As president of Survivors Abreast now, Carroll leads a team that now has enough members to fill two boats at the upcoming Peterborough’s Dragon Boat Festival on June 10th.
Since its infancy, Survivors Abreast has been generously supported by coaches (Len Minty came on board at the beginning to share a wealth of knowledge about dragon boating), local sponsors that assisted in getting the team practice time (first at the YMCA and later at Trent University), and the medical community.
It was Dr. John Rowsom, a surgeon at The Medical Centre, and three other local doctors who generously put up $1,000 each toward the team’s first boat. Publicity over that donation sparked the interest of Liberty Mutual, which provided the rest of the donation.
“In the beginning we were just so excited to paddle, just to make it across the water,” Carroll says, recalling the team’s first race in Pickering. She and her team-mates were the only breast cancer survivors there, and they raced against people who had been paddling for years.
Unbeknownst to the team, Rowsom had travelled to Pickering and met the team on the shore as the race finished. He was the same surgeon who had not only made the boat, and hence, the race possible, but also had performed lifesaving surgery on many of the paddlers.
“There were lots of tears,” Carroll says. “It was an emotional day for all of us.”
The team will be paddling for its 17th year when it takes to the water of Little Lake on June 10th. Carroll calls it a “floating support group” — a “sisterhood ship.”
“People think it’s all about raising money, and it is, but it’s also about raising awareness — awareness that there is life after breast cancer.”
All photos courtesy of Peterborough’s Dragon Boat Festival.
