Bloom 2.0

In May, 2000, my family attended the Toronto Spring Sprint for brain tumour research, only a few months after my brother David was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumour.

We went for lunch after the event David asked us bluntly: “Why isn’t there a Sprint in Brampton [our hometown]?” My father nodded his head and said he’d look into starting one up in Brampton.

That September, we formed a committee to launch the inaugural Brampton Spring Sprint for the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada, to be held May 6th, 2001 at Professor’s Lake. The event was a 3km walkathon around the lake, a charity BBQ and silent auction. We set a goal to raise $50,000. David, whose condition went up and down on an almost daily basis, was to start the race.

Around 9:15 p.m. on April 23, 2001, David passed away at our home, surrounded by his family and friends. He was 19.
Even though the Sprint was less than two weeks away, that didn’t stop our efforts. On May 6th, the Sprint — renamed The David Bloom Memorial Spring Sprint (DBMSS) — went on as scheduled. More than 700 people attended, raising a mind boggling $120,000 for brain tumour research in David’s name.

Five years later, the David Bloom Memorial Spring Sprint continues — held every year at Professor’s Lake on the first Sunday in May. To date, we have raised nearly $750,000 for the BTFC.

For more information about David and the event, please visit www.springsprint.com. The site has articles about David (who was a performer at Canada’s Wonderland, PEI’s The Charlottetown Festival and Mayfield Secondary School for the Arts) as well as photos, video and information about how you can help this very important cause. (There are also photos on the right of this page in my Flickr gallery).

Together, we’re making brain tumours a memory!

Click here to read my “Lives Lived” about David, which ran in The Globe and Mail on May 30, 2001