After three years of hosting the asbestos awareness Walk For Truth in Powell River, organizer Tracy Ford has announced that the 2014 event will be the last. Ford, the co-founder of AREA (Asbestos-related Research, Education and Advocacy) Fund, sent an email to supporters on July 12 detailing her decision to scale back involvement as she begins a new battle, with multiple sclerosis (MS).
“This is the last year that AREA Fund will be able to host a walk, as I was recently diagnosed with MS and simply won’t have enough energy to do it again,” she said. “However, there will be an asbestos awareness walk in BC next year, thanks to Phil Venoit of IBEW [International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 230].”
The 2015 walk will be held in Victoria and will be hosted by the Vancouver Island Building Construction Trades Council, of which Venoit is president.
Since the first Walk For Truth, which took place in Powell River in June 2012, AREA Fund has raised over $100,000 for asbestos education and research initiatives. The 2014 event was held on July 12 and brought in $18,000 from union, corporate and private donations.
AREA Fund will continue to function in a reduced capacity, in memory of Tracy’s late father, Dave Ford, who died in October 2008 from mesothelioma. The disease is one of several directly connected to asbestos exposure.
“Asbestos-related diseases are the number one occupational killer in BC,” states the AREA Fund website. “We are all at risk for exposure to asbestos; products containing asbestos are in our homes, our work places and our public buildings.”
Often called the “silent killer,” asbestos is virtually harmless if undisturbed. However, airborne fibres can be deadly, often taking decades before their full effects on the lungs are realized.
Readers may visit online for more information on AREA Fund, the risks of asbestos and the 2015 walk in Victoria.
