"Helping Children with Cancer"…Man Runs 8,000 km Across Canada, Inspiring Emotion

The story of a New Zealand man challenging himself to run across Canada has become a hot topic. This man started running to raise funds for pediatric cancer after losing his parents to cancer, and he is reportedly close to successfully completing the run.

On the 1st (local time), CTV reported that John Naps (32), a New Zealand national, is approaching the final destination of his east-to-west cross-Canada run, the capital of British Columbia, Victoria.

Naps began running in early March last year from St. John's, Newfoundland on the Atlantic coast, running seven hours daily toward the west. Canada is the second-largest country in the world, and the total distance he has crossed so far exceeds 8,000 km.

Naps lost his father and mother to skin cancer and colorectal cancer in 2020 and the following year, and he started running to raise funds for pediatric cancer patients. He said, "When my family received cancer diagnoses, what was desperately needed amid despair and pain was to find hope, comfort, and joy, and to endure and live."

During his run, Naps shared his journey on social media (SNS) and also visited the British Columbia Children's Hospital in Vancouver. He said, "Many people approached me during the run and shared their own and their families' experiences with cancer," adding, "We shared with each other and were moved together."

John Naps is standing next to the statue of Terry Fox in downtown Vancouver.
Photo by Yonhap News

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Terry Fox, a national hero in Canada, also motivated him. Fox, a versatile athlete, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma at age 18 in 1977 and had his right leg amputated.

He then embarked on the "Marathon of Hope" in 1980, running across Canada with a prosthetic leg to raise funds for cancer patients. However, the cancer recurred during the run, forcing him to stop after 143 days, and he passed away the following year.

Naps initially set a fundraising goal of 60,000 Canadian dollars (about 59.1 million KRW), but so far, 90,000 Canadian dollars have been raised, already exceeding the target. He plans to reach a final fundraising amount of 100,000 Canadian dollars and donate it to pediatric cancer foundations in Canada and New Zealand.

Angle Ramallo, Secretary-General of the Canadian Pediatric Cancer Foundation, praised him, saying, "Naps is truly an amazing person, and his heart is in the right place."

Naps shared his thoughts, saying, "It was an incredibly physically demanding challenge, especially crossing the central prairie region and the Rocky Mountains during winter," adding, "I was encouraged by the residents who gathered everywhere I went and their kind hospitality."

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