The Ben Stelter School Fundraiser has raised over $500,000 since its inception in 2023. Over 60 schools around the Edmonton region participated last year, raising $285,000 to support the fundraiser’s cause. But what are these funds going towards, and why is the BSSF so incredibly important?
If you’ve been following along with the school fundraiser’s journey, you know that it was founded by Aariz Mawji, who was, at the time, an eighth-grade student, to honor Ben Stelter, an Edmonton Oilers superfan diagnosed with glioblastoma, a devastating brain cancer, at just 4 years old. Throughout his painful fight with cancer, Ben was always front row cheering for the Oilers, his bright, infectious smile making him loved by hockey fans everywhere.
“I first heard about Ben’s story at his fourth birthday party.”, Mawji describes. “When Ben tragically passed, the idea of starting a fund came up. After it launched, I thought of bringing it to my school – kids raising money for kids.”
The Ben Stelter School Fundraiser’s aim is to support the opening of a proton beam therapy center here in Edmonton, so kids with cancer can receive the best care possible while keeping as much of their lives as possible.
Currently, patients in Canada are treated by photon radiotherapy, which uses X-rays to damage cancerous tissues. The problem is that the radiation travels through the whole body, unnecessarily irradiating normal, healthy tissue. In children and young adults, this can cause serious effects in the future, such as hearing loss and growth deformities.
Proton beam therapy, on the other hand, is a precise form of radiation that uses protons to destroy the tumor cells’ DNA, stopping them from growing and dividing. Unlike X-rays, proton beams travel directly into the tumor without damaging the surrounding tissue.
“It’s the most targeted form of radiation treatment that is currently available worldwide”, says Dr. Ankur Sharma, Harvard Graduate and Radiation Oncologist at the Central Alberta Cancer Center.
This means patients experience fewer and less harmful side effects than conventional radiation.
Loss of appetite, hair loss, and extreme fatigue are just some of the many problems radiation can cause. “Kids are growing, so their bodies are especially sensitive to cancer treatments like Radiation treatment”, explains Dr. Sharma.
Proton therapy also has fewer long-term complications, which leads to kids growing up to live a healthy, fulfilling life, and the risk of secondary cancer is greatly reduced.
“It’s especially important in people with brain, spine, head, and neck cancers, and specifically in kids with cancer”, says Dr. Sharma. Maximum, precise control is required to avoid damaging the surrounding healthy organs.
In the landmark Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, researchers compared the long-term health of more than 25,000 childhood cancer survivors with that of their healthy siblings. Dr. Kevin Oeffinger et al. found that childhood cancer survivors were 8 times more likely to develop severe or life-threatening chronic health conditions later in life. Because radiation therapy can contribute to these long-term effects, proton therapy offers an important advantage by more precisely targeting tumours and limiting radiation exposure to healthy surrounding tissue.
Unfortunately, Canada is the only G7 country without a proton therapy center domestically. Since 2018, the Ontario government alone has spent over $200 million sending patients to the United States for the treatment they need to live. The US has around 50 operating proton therapy centers, a number that is still rising. Japan has over 20 facilities. Germany, France, and the United Kingdom all have multiple hospitals that offer this treatment.
However, proton therapy is costly in more ways than one. Little kids need to move to the US for months at a time, which has a big impact on their mental state, as not only does the travel affect them, but they’re torn apart from their school, friends, family, and life back home, to an unfamiliar place thousands of miles away.
“Kids have to be pulled out of school for weeks, parents have to take time off work to care for and travel with their kids”, Dr. Sharma emphasized. “They’re often travelling to places where they have no support”. Missing school for that long has a detrimental impact on both the child’s learning and their mental health, causing social anxiety, depression, and isolation that is hard to escape even after they’re better.
These kids are more than their cancer. They’re strong, talented, smart, and brave. The Ben Stelter School Fundraiser hopes to preserve that, because no child should have to give up their childhood to fight their illness.
“Many patients have to refuse Proton Therapy because of the relocation, expenses and stress of moving to a new place for months at a time, even though it is the best treatment for their health”, Aariz Mawji, director of the BSSF, said. “I hope that the proton therapy center changes that – so Canadian cancer patients can get the treatment they need here at home.”
To learn more about the Ben Stelter Centre for Proton Therapy and Neuroscience, click here.
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