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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday February 21, 2007 - 33 Living Oakville Beaver LIVING EDITOR: ANGELA BLACKBURN Phone 905-845-3824, ext. 248; e-mail angela@oakvillebeaver.com · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007 33 Marking 50 years in the community Heart and soul When cancer strikes kids, it's enough to keep Joan Gibb, easily the heart of the Canadian Cancer Society's Oakville Unit, working double, even triple, duty. Gibb has been involved about 40 years with the CCS -- 30 of them spent with the now 50-year-old Oakville Unit. Gibb has managed to pitch in even when she was ill, a single mom, working full time, and involved as a representative at the regional and national levels, too. Gibb's dad died of lung cancer, as did her aunt, Bess Crawford, with whom she was as close as her own mom. In the years since, Gibb has lived, sometimes practically breathing, the Oakville Unit and its umbrella organizations in order to make a difference. Gibb arrived in Oakville from Montreal in 1976. She had sold daffodils with the Québec CCS Division and she somehow was recruited Breast cancer talk Pouches of bird seed were the prostheses suggested to mastectomy patients in the early days of the Canadian Cancer Society's Oakville Unit. That was the era when long-time Oakville resident Sheila Thompson not only had her own mastectomy, and then drew upon her personal experience and her long-time volunteering at Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (OTMH) to visit breast cancer patients. "In the '70s, it was not something anybody discussed," said Thompson who has volunteered 38 years with OTMH (even serving on the board of governors) and began visiting breast cancer patients in 1974. Mastectomy Visiting Services was renamed Reach to Recovery in the late 1980s indicative of the ever changing attitude about not only breast cancer, but cancer in general. So, too, did science advance to offer breast cancer patients options after surgery that Thompson calls, "a little bit more advanced" than the pouches of bird seed. OPEN HOUSE: The CCS' Oakville Unit is markJoan Gibb by Wyn Moore, the first secretary at the Oakville Unit office. Gibb attended a Unit meeting -- still held in founder Jean Smith's living room at the time -- and was quick to ask about daffodil sales. Quicker she learned the daffodils weren't sold so they wouldn't interfere with the annual residential campaign. "I said we will find a way to do both," said Gibb who put heads together with Ed Zinkewich and the late Rudy Kopriva and his wife Iona, ing its 50th year in operation with an open house Feb. 24 from noon-4:30 p.m. at its current office located at 635 Fourth Line, Unit 51. (Call 905-8455231 for details). Sheila Thompson Even better, science has advanced so that today often lumpectomies are done, which don't alter appearance. "Today it's not a death sentence," said Thompson, adding people openly discuss breast cancer, recovery times are much quicker, surgeries are not as radical and there are support groups so that hospital visits like she used to make are no longer necessary. While Thompson still makes them, she also volunteers at Wellspring. Thompson said she volunteered because "I was very pleased somebody spoke to me about it." STORIES BY ANGELA BLACKBURN PHOTOS BY RIZIERO VERTOLLI / OAKVILLE BEAVER See Working page 34 Through the years Lillian Morris, a native of Scotland, sat in her onewoman office at the Oakville Unit of the Canadian Cancer Society --new to the job -- and wondered where she'd find someone to drive a cancer patient the following day. Then a man walked in off the street, sat down and said he wanted to drive. She asked how soon he could start. He replied, tomorrow. "To me, that was a wow," said Morris, a long-time office secretary, co-ordinator, manager (the title changed over time), remembering her early days in the Oakville Unit's office. Though the Unit was founded in the Rosemary Lane living room of the late Jean Smith -- and continued to meet there initially -- it made its first "business" home atop the TD Bank in downtown RAIN OR SLEET: A few of the more than 100 members of Oakville's Beta Sigma Phi Sorority who helped sell daffodils, no matter what the weather, or condition of the blooms, for more than 25 years. Daffodil Days bloom Lillian Morris Oakville. It was a challenging climb up the staircase to enter the two-room office, and Morris recalls how all the campaign material had to be lugged up and down those stairs. It was hot, too, sweltering, recalled Morris, saying, "Looking back it was pretty awful, but it was great at the time." That's because the Unit finally had an office, said See Office page 47 Even when the daffodils were moldy, Oakville residents bought them to support the Canadian Cancer Society on Daffodil Days. "One year we had blooms that were all moldy and people even still donated. People were really great," recalled Oakville resident Joan McCoy. The long-time resident sold daffodils every year for the nearly 30 years her sorority, Beta Sigma Phi, and its 11 Oakville chapters and 130 members, participated in the annual fundraiser. "About 100 Beta Sigma Phi sisters were involved each year selling them," said McCoy. The sorority sisters called businesses to do pre-sales and then delivered the blooms Thursday and Friday -- before heading to various locations all across town to sell daffodils on Friday night and Saturday. Women like McCoy could be found in the OakvilleTrafalgar Memorial Hospital (OTMH) lounge, at Beer Stores, grocery stores, malls and more. "I did it because it's a good cause," said McCoy, adding she also has "extensive" family experience with cancer. Marsha Grout Karen Motherwell Door knocking It's tough knocking on doors to collect money, but Karen Motherwell keeps on knocking. She was 32 years old when she lost her dad to brain cancer. She's been knocking on doors, even while co-ordinating the overall Door-to-Door Campaign with Marsha Grout, for 28 years. This April, wherever the Oakville Unit of the Canadian Cancer Society needs a canvasser, Motherwell will be knocking. She remembers heading up the campaign years ago and one day, having just lost a parent to cancer and moving, she announced the campaign goals to a gathering at Oakville Arena's Pine Room and told everyone if they needed her, she was Karen Motherwell of No Fixed Address. She still knocked on doors. "It is tough," said Grout asking who really does like See Daffodils page 47 See Many page 47