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There are so many large not-for-profit cancer organizations, but starting your own charity makes a personal mark, not only by impacting the beneficiaries but by giving friends and family a purpose, a legacy to honour, champion and continue.  One also has control over where to designate the money.

New Glasgow, Nova Scotia resident Emma Lee Stewart decided to start The Reason For Hope Not-For-Profit Society after receiving a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2006. The disease returned in 2010, seeded in her liver and has since spread to her bones and brain.

“Everybody thinks that breast cancer is this little pink thing that is just gonna go away; everybody’s gonna beat it; everybody’s gonna be cured. Well, it’s not the case,” Emma Lee, 54, tells samaritanmag.com. “We need to do more research on why this metastasizes and we need to help people so that it stops happening.”

Metastasis is the transference of disease-producing organisms or of malignant or cancerous cells to other parts of the body by way of the blood or lymphatic vessels or membranous surfaces.

The Reason For Hope Not-For-Profit Society has raised more than $20,000, mostly for the care facilities at which Emma Lee has been a patient.

Her whole family — husband Jim; and two grown children, daughter Mary and son Lee — help with the events, along with dozens of friends and acquaintances.

The most recent project is The Reason For Hope compilation CD, spearhead by Emma Lee’s daughter, a singer-songwriter now based in Toronto. Emma Lee and Mary both have songs on it, in addition to other eastern Canadian artists such as Lennie Gallant, Matt Minglewood, In-Flight Safety, Crush Luther, Amos The Transparent, The Danger Bees and Jenn Grant.

The CD can be purchased for $20 (inc. shipping) by email money transfer, as well as old-fashioned mail order, through Emma Lee’s blog, http://raisinghopeforemmalee.blogspot.com or by emailing TheReasonForHopeCD@gmail.com.

New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton lost his battle with cancer today, but in a final letter to Canadians dated August 20, the 61-year-old urged others diagnosed with the deadly disease to “please don’t be discouraged that my own journey hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope.”

He wrote: “Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer.”

In February, 2010, Layton shared publically that he, like 25,000 other Canadian men, was diagnosed with prostate cancer. His father beat the disease 17 years earlier. He appeared to beat it too. Earlier this year, he led the NDP to Official Opposition status in the federal election with a historic number of seats, 103. 

But at a news conference on July 25, he announced that he had been experiencing stiffness and pain and underwent a series of tests at Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital. “My battle against prostate cancer, as it turns out from these tests, is going very well…however these tests whose results I received just last week also indicate that I have a new cancer, non-prostate cancer that’s gonna require further treatment.

“So on the advice of my doctors,” he continued, “I'm going to focus on treatment and recovery. I will therefore be taking a temporary leave of absence as leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada and I’m gonna fight this cancer now  so I can be back to fight for families when parliament resumes.”