This year, Peterborough’s Dragon Boat Festival is celebrating 20 years of making a difference for breast cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment at Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC).
The 20th annual festival will take place on Saturday, June 13th at Del Crary Park in downtown Peterborough and features a fun day of dragon boat racing on Little Lake between community, competitive, and breast cancer survivor teams.
Paddler registration opens at ptbodragonboat.ca just after midnight on Tuesday, March 3rd. The first three teams to register will get a free extra on-water practice.
This year, the festival is marking both the year 2020 and its 20th anniversary with a fundraising goal of $202,020.20. Last year’s goal was $191,000.00, and the event raised $241,738.54 — bringing the total raised over the 19 years of the festival to more than $3.6 million.
“We are so proud of the incredible impact that Peterborough’s Dragon Boat Festival has had since its inception,” says Gina Lee, the new chair for the 2020 festival. “We have a lofty goal this year of raising $202,020.20. I encourage everyone in our community to get involved by registering a team, volunteering for this year’s festival, or supporting through fundraising to help us reach our target.”
Lee is herself a breast cancer survivor and a member of festival host Survivors Abreast, a competitive Peterborough-based dragon boat team made up of breast cancer survivors. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012 and, thanks to the care she received at PRHC and the support of her friends and family, she was able to join the Survivors Abreast team the following year and participated in her first Dragon Boat Festival in 2013.
“Being a survivor myself, I know first hand how important it is to have the very best cancer care,” Lee says. “It saves lives. I caught the wave of excitement at my first festival, and now I’m so honoured to be part of this awesome event, helping to ensure that gold-standard cancer care is available to everyone in our community.”
Platinum sponsor Kawartha Credit Union returns as this year’s lead sponsor for the 19th year in a row. Along with the dragon boat races, the 2020 festival will see a return of the vendor village, a family fun zone, beer garden, food options, and live entertainment.
Proceeds from the 2020 festival will help fund the next step forward in PRHC’s chemotherapy program: the state-of-the-art Robotic Intravenous Automation System (RIVA), which is designed to reliably and accurately prepare IV syringes and bags in hospital pharmacies. By automating the preparation process, the system addresses issues of safety for both patients and staff as well as improved efficiency and precision.
