We are very excited to announce that we are changing the name of our monumental journey to the Shoppers Drug Mart® Weekend to End Women’s Cancer™!

Your groundswell, history-making event has evolved in mission and name. Today, we’re looking out on the horizon of a brand new day, one in which we bring the unstoppable spirit of this endeavour to fight cancers that impact way too many women. Now, new registrants will be able to choose the destination of their donor funds: breast, gynecologic or discovery fund for cancers that impact women.

Alberta’s cancer professionals are distinguished by their commitment to research. They want to know why some women get breast cancer and others don’t. They need to understand why a treatment works on one woman and not on another.

Each answer brings them closer to unlocking the key to stopping breast cancer before it starts. Each answer brings more effective treatments to stop breast cancer in its tracks.

Each answer is a tribute to the more than 360 Alberta women who lost their fights with breast cancer last year. Each answer is a gift to the more than 1,700 Alberta women who will be diagnosed with breast cancer this coming year. Each answer is a promise to our daughters and granddaughters worldwide.

Shoppers Drug Mart® Weekend to End Women’s Cancer™, the single largest breast cancer fundraiser ever held in Alberta, fuels the research that builds those answers.

“It costs roughly $100,000 to ask a single research question,” says Dr. Tony Magliocco of Calgary’s Tom Baker Cancer Centre. And in just four years, The Weekend to End Women's Cancers has invested in more than 50 new breast cancer projects that will provide answers answers we need to put an end to this disease.

Before the Alberta Cancer Foundation launched The Weekend in Alberta, it was able to invest just $300,000 annually in breast cancer research at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton and the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary. It was unable to provide any funding to support breast screening. The story is very different today with an investment of more than $20 million in just four years, thanks to Weekend walkers, volunteers and donors.

I, like so many of you, have suffered a personal loss. My sister Kym died of breast cancer just last year. Although she lived in Ontario, she had access to a clinical research trial that began here in Alberta, funded through The Weekend.

I’ll be walking again this year for my sixth time in memory of Kym, and for everyone touched by breast cancer. I’m proud to be part of this amazing event and to share the experience with you. I’m also proud to share the work we’re doing to end breast cancer. It is all possible because of you, participants in The Weekend and those who so generously support you.

A collaborative Edmonton/Calgary research initiative with grants awarded through an annual competition overseen by an international expert advisory council. This ensures only the best research is funded and that breast or gynecologic cancer research projects build on worldwide efforts rather than duplicating them.

In 2006, when The Weekend was launched in Alberta, $3 million was invested in the first 12 research projects. Today, more than 50 Alberta breast cancer research projects are being funded.

This chair was established with a $5 million endowment in 2007. A world-wide recruitment effort is now underway to bring a top research expert to Edmonton or Calgary.

Later this year, two state-of-the-art digital mammography mobile screening facilities will be on the road visiting more than 100 rural sites to ensure as many women as possible have access to this life-saving screening. The $11 million funding commitment made possible by The Weekend is also supplying full-field digital mammography equipment for the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton and fixed screening sites in Edmonton and Calgary.

• Bridge funding made possible by The Weekend enabled more than 280 Alberta women to access Herceptin while this exiting new drug was under review for government funding
  
• A dedicated ultrasound was purchased for the breast surgery suite at the Cross Cancer Institute
  
• The Weekend dollars supported Positively Pink Breast Health Education Conferences in Calgary and Edmonton
  
• Short-term funding is provided to patients and families in need through the Patient Financial Assistance Program.

The following are just some of the Alberta researchers whose work is supported by funds from The Weekend to End Women's Cancers: