Kilmarnock teachers complete 10k challenge as a heartfelt tribute tragic pupil
The teachers are now hoping to make this an annual event to raise money for bone cancer research.
Park School teachers took on a 10k challenge at Race for Life as a heartfelt tribute to Katy Hay, a beloved S4 pupil who passed away after a courageous battle with cancer.
The Cancer Research UK Race for Life took place at the Low Green on Sunday, June 1 where the Park School team raised over £5,500 for life-saving research.
Claire Matthews, the S4 key teacher, told Ayrshire Live: "The day started cold and wet but the weather picked up and we had a great day.
"Katy's mum, aunt and one of her sisters came to cheer us on along with her best friend Kirsty and her mum. They stayed until every single one of us crossed the finishing line and cheered us all on throughout the race.
"Some ran and others walked but we all completed the 10k and raised over £5,400 so far for Cancer Research. Dr Marie Macklin donated £1,000 which gave us all such a boost."
Alanah Robb, who was Katy's key teacher, added: "It was a fantastic day tinged with sadness. We all wore our Katy T-shirts. We were the only ones wearing photo T-shirts so we really stood out on the course.
"Crossing the finish line was bittersweet. We had a huge sense of achievement at completing the race but also sadness that our fundraising focus had come to an end."
Fifteen-year-old Katy sadly lost her battle in April, after fighting stage 4 Ewing Sarcoma, one of the rarest and most aggressive forms of bone cancer for the past year.
Katy knew about the fundraiser before she passed away peacefully on Tuesday, April 29. She was moved by the gesture from her teachers and felt proud.
Katy's mum Shelly Cornick said: "The Race for Life was good and the team did amazing.
"However, it was difficult, because Katy was supposed to be there to support them."
Shelly continued: "We wanted to be there to support the team as we knew how much Katy wanted to go so we felt it was our place to be there."
Park school teachers are now hoping to make this an annual event to raise money for bone cancer research.
Claire mentioned: "Katy's mum Shelly said that she is going to do the Kiltwalk next year specifically for bone cancer and, all being well, 'Katy's Krew' will join her.
"We are hoping to do something similar now annually.
"Shelly says she is going to fundraise in Katy's name from now on and she asked if she could use the name 'Katy's Krew' for all fundraising activities in the future. We would be more than honoured for this to happen."
Shelly is determined to join Katy's teachers to raise money for the Bone Cancer Research Trust.
She explained: "I have asked that all money raised in the future fundraisers goes straight to the Bone Cancer Trust as only about 1 per cent from Cancer Research goes to fund life-saving research for bone cancer/Ewing Sarcoma.
"We are going to set up a fund in Katy's name and all money raised will go to fund trying to find better treatment and hopefully a cure.
"As a family, we are also going to fight to try and spread awareness for Ewing Sarcoma and try and fight for change in the amount of money that is not available for it."
Park school teachers, together with pupils, also came up with other ideas to remember Katy.
Head Teacher, Mrs Carol Anne Burns said: "There will be a 'Katy Hay Award for Resilience' every year in our Celebrating Success Assembly.
"Every year on April 29 pupils will also wear blue or pink to remember Katy. We may ask pupils for £1 donation on this day. There are also plans for a stained glass window and a daffodil garden which will be in bloom every April.
"We all feel it is important that we never forget Katy and that we celebrate her too short life."
To support a fundraiser, please visit here.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
Doctor reveals diet that mimics the effect of fasting without starving yourself could also CURE cancer
A leading longevity doctor has revealed the diet he says may be able to cure cancer, and potentially ward it off in the first place. There is growing evidence that severe calorie restriction (less than 800 per day) can starve cancer cells of the fuel they need to grow, halting them in their tracks and killing them off. Your browser does not support iframes.
The Independent
2 days ago
- The Independent
Putting cancer warnings on alcohol would help me drink less
Back in the early noughties, the indoor smoking ban led to an outcry over 'the nanny state'. The same happened when cigarette advertising was banned, and when manufacturers were required to plaster packs with images of diseased lungs. Yet over the past 40 years, according to Cancer Research, lung cancer rates in men have dropped by around 60 per cent. We may think we crave the rugged freedoms of the Marlboro Man, but given the facts, it turns out we don't actually want to die. And yet when it comes to alcohol, one of the world's biggest killers, a key driver of cancers, heart disease, strokes and obesity, there are no images of rotting livers on the chilled Sauvignon. The presentation of booze in the supermarket aisles is as benign as kitchen roll and chicken pie. It's described on restaurant menus with biblical reverence, it's advertised on TV in a hazy, golden-hour glow, and every other greetings card carries a hilarious reference to the booze-addled nature of the recipient. It is both normalised and celebrated, despite being the fifth greatest risk factor for death in the UK. Now, a group of major medical and health organisations have signed a letter to the Prime Minister calling for alcohol to carry explicit warnings that its consumption can cause cancer. The World Cancer Research Fund, which spearheaded the letter, cited 'shockingly low' public awareness that alcohol raises the risk of seven types of cancer – these being breast, bowel, stomach, head, neck, liver and mouth – and insisted that 'bold and unambiguous labelling' is urgently need to help save lives. Token efforts have long been made by the industry to toe a wavering line of responsibility – the number of units a bottle of wine contains written in a font the size of a gnat's IKEA instructions, or a glancing mention that pregnant women shouldn't drink. According to the Advertising Standards Authority, 'Lively, but responsible, social interaction or party scenes with alcohol present are allowed but…no behaviour may be adolescent or childish.' If only that diktat held true in real-life 'party scenes.' Initially, like much of Gen X and our wine-necking Boomer parents, I was resistant to the idea of cancer warnings. If I wanted to slowly kill myself in a responsible and socially acceptable manner, I felt it should be my choice to do so. But after another night of drinking slightly too much with friends, waking bathed in shame and a light prosecco sweat, I reconsidered. Women, particularly, are at risk of harm from alcohol, simply because we're smaller. If every time I picked up the wine bottle to top up my glass – over a healthy dinner! So civilised! – it reminded me that I was increasing my risk of cancer, I suspect I might put it back down. Humans like to ignore the dangers when it's something we want to do until it becomes impossible to turn a blind eye. But this time, it's not so much the consumers resisting warnings as the enormously powerful drinks industry. It's already up against Gen Z's wellbeing crusade, with a tsunami of kumbucha and kefir washing away the old-school shots and spirits from nights out. The risk of drinkers murmuring, 'Actually, I don't think I do want seven types of cancer' and switching the kettle on instead is a step too far. A spokesperson for the Portman Group, which oversees UK alcohol labelling in the UK, says: 'Whilst we do not dispute the link between alcohol and certain cancers… blanket cancer warning labels…can create unnecessary anxiety, eroding trust in health advice and alienating the very people who require support.' As an argument, this is weaker than a sixth-form debating point scribbled on the bus. Imagine the motor industry saying, 'Road signs create unnecessary anxiety. Let's not warn people that they might crash, lest we alienate drivers.' The spokesperson added that most alcohol products already include advice to limit drinking to 14 units a week, and claimed that 'most people drink within guidelines.' According to NHS Digital, however, 24 per cent of Brits drink more than this, while the charity Drinkaware has found that 32 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women regularly sink more than the recommended limit – and it is a limit, not a target. Doctors repeatedly warn that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, and in April, the World Health Organisation advised that women should drink no alcohol at all to avoid a heightened risk of breast cancer. I'm aware that even reading this is annoying. I share the general British resentment over finger-wagging admonishments from the Fun Police. I want to say, 'You'll prise my Picpoul from my cold, dead hand.' The only thing is, I'd rather not be cold and dead – and I'm increasingly convinced that warning labels can only be a good thing. Although, of course, we must be careful how we approach this new regime. After all, we wouldn't want to alienate anybody.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
Cancer experts alarmed over ‘gut-wrenching' Trump plan to cut research spending by billions
More patients may die as a result of plans drawn up by the Trump administration to cut billions of dollars from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), veteran federal government workers and experts have warned. Nearly $2.7bn would be cut from the agency, which is the largest funder of cancer research in the world – a decline of 37.2% from the previous year – under a budget proposal for 2026, in the latest effort to cut staff and funding. 'These cuts are absolutely gut wrenching,' Erin Lavik, former deputy director and chief technology officer at the NCI's division of cancer prevention, told the Guardian. Lavik was fired along with a swath of probationary workers at the institute in February; put on administrative leave in response to a judge's ruling to halt the firings in March; and then terminated again in April. 'We're not making things more efficient or better,' she said. 'What's being left is sort of the non-impactful iterative work, and we're pruning all of the potential for transformative science.' The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network has cautioned that the proposed cuts 'will set this nation back dramatically in our ability to reduce death and suffering' and noted that cancer is expected to kill more than 618,000 Americans this year. Julie Nickson, vice-president of Federal Advocacy and Coalitions, said: 'This wouldn't just be a blow to science, it's a blow to families, communities, and our economy. Every day counts in the fight against cancer and with more than 2 million Americans expected to be diagnosed with this horrible disease in 2025 alone, now is not the time to go backwards.' Jennifer R Brown, secretary of the American Society of Hematology and director of the Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) Center of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, told the Guardian that cuts under Donald Trump have 'already been devastating', with key research halted that can't easily be restarted. 'What the public needs to know is that the science that may not sound so obvious, or that they may not know that much about, is really what drives our cancer treatments and our cancer cures. And so if we cut that, we're going to lose it,' said Brown. Cancer research historically funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which houses the NCI, 'is the basic science that figures out what to target in the cancer cell', she said. 'Then a drug may be developed that may be from an academic, it may be from a pharma company, but the trials are then also run by academics and pharma in collaboration, and academics who are funded by NIH, who do the legwork to figure out how the drug is working in patients. 'Pharma companies take the drug to the finish line. And so if we don't have this basic research, we're not going to be able to identify new targets, and that means we're not going to have new therapies, and ultimately more patients may die.' Brown sees a direct link between NIH-funded academic research and cancer drugs for chronic lymphocytic leukemia that helped patients live longer. 'People who would have died in a few months, lived for years with the first version of this drug,' she said. Hundreds of staff have been terminated from the NCI in recent months, including dozens of communications workers. 'Our website, is used worldwide and is the ground truth for cancer information,' said one fired communications employee at the institute, who requested to remain anonymous. 'Science isn't finished until it's communicated.' Between 28 February and 8 April, more than $180m in NCI grants were cancelled by the Trump administration. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion NIH declined to comment, deferring to comments on the budget proposal cuts to the office of management and budget, which did not respond to requests for comment. NIH did not comment on how many employees at the agency remain after several rounds of cuts and layoffs. Lavik said the cuts are likely to threaten large-scale research programs, such as the National Community Oncology Research program, which covers community hospitals all over the US and ensures patients have access to clinical trials, cutting edge cancer care, prevention and screenings. 'I am deeply concerned about the future of these really important clinical trials programs that are really hard to rebuild if you stop them,' she said. 'In the prevention program, there are large scale screening trials, and they have large data sets. We were working really hard on policies to make those data sets more accessible and available to the research community. And we're all gone.' Drastic cuts across federal science funding is causing scientists to consider leaving science and eliminating opportunities for younger scientists to enter training pipelines as undergraduate researchers, graduate researchers and postdocs, according to Lavik. 'The things that are transformative are fundamentally high-risk, high-reward research,' she said. 'We start to move into the clinic, and that's what leads to the new kinds of treatments that don't just help a little bit, but really change the face of how we treat patients, how we prevent cancers, how we treat other conditions. 'You have to be willing to do lots and lots of things that don't work. There are so many ways we should be more efficient about what we do. But to do that, you really need those young scientists, those new people in the field; you need the people who've come into the NIH and the NCI, who are thinking differently about doing things and willing to take those big swings.'
