Editor:
The Hough Memorial Cancer Fund Society regrettably must inform the community of Williams Lake and the Cariboo that we will cease to exist.
We cannot find volunteers to take over our project of raising money to support early cancer detection in our community and we cannot continue with only seven of us remaining in the society.
We have raised over $3,000,000 from 1972 to date from this community and have been able to have surgeons and doctors in our community do early cancer detection of cancer without having to send people out of town.
Our average age is 78 and we can no longer do the fund raising required to purchase scopes and early detection equipment. Without sufficient scopes and surgeons here in Williams Lake, people will have to travel to Kamloops, Kelowna or Prince George for early detection of their cancer.
The nurses and doctors here in Williams Lake are putting up a valiant fight and are always grateful for our donations and will really miss us.
Interior Health has become a bureaucratic nightmare to work with. Therefore I, with a heavy heart, am advising the community that Noel Donnelly, Cathy Passeri, Mary Jane Engstrom, Audrey Hyde, Lynn Roberts, Maggie Jacobson and myself, Mary Telfer will no longer try to keep the Hough afloat. My advice to you younger generations is that you need to step up to the plate and volunteer rather than continue to drift along in a dream stance that will not maintain what we elders have built.
Our remaining funds will be used to purchase scopes, recliner and lifting chairs for ambulatory care and hospice society. We, as a team, wish to thank deeply those people who have donated generously over the past sixty two years.
Mary Telfer
Williams Lake