Happy Monkeys at Dragon Boat Festival

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This article was published 03/08/2016 (3384 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Each year CancerCare Manitoba Foundation and the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba join forces with FMG Dragon Boat for the Manitoba Dragon Boat Festival.

This three-day event takes place at The Forks each September in support of the most vulnerable Manitobans – kids with cancer.

This year paddlers will be challenged to the core as they paddle it out against rival teams on Sept. 9, 10 and 11.

The survival rate for childhood cancer has improved significantly in the last 60 years, and today about 80 percent of children survive a cancer diagnosis. The results are positive, but childhood cancer is still the leading disease-related cause of death for Canadian children.

What really hits home for Carol Ploen-Hosegood when it comes to the Manitoba Dragon Boat Festival is that children have no choice when it comes to cancer.

“They’re helpless, cancer strikes them before they even have an opportunity to experience life,” she said. “Hopefully the money we are raising is going to create cures. To hear the statistics in the last 30 years of the progression of cancer in children, I feel great about the cause.”

The daughter of Winnipeg Blue Bombers great Ken Ploen said the energy on the day of the festival is unmatched.

“Hearing the boats come down the river, watching the finishes — it’s a very cool environment and very different,” she said.

“Dragon boating is just something you don’t do every day. To get 22 people into a boat and make it move down the river is really unique.”

Ploen-Hosegood runs the Happy Monkey Club, a women’s group of roughly 400 followers who are aimed at leading a happy, positive life while following five pillars to happiness — be positive, eat healthy, live active, have fun and give back.

“We’re always looking for events that are a little bit different that challenge us physically but also give us an opportunity to give back to our community,” she said. “The Dragon Boat Festival nails exactly what we are about.”

The Happy Monkey Club has had up to three boats representing the group in the race. This year they will have two and Ploen-Hosegood will be thinking of those who’ve been struck by cancer.

“We have friends whose children have fought cancer and survived, so they’re definitely on my mind,” she said.

“I have family members who have lost their lives to cancer, good friends who have died at 40 years old. And the women in our boats who are survivors and sometimes we forget because they’re healthy and in front of us.”

To register or request more information on the Manitoba Dragon Boat Festival, please call 204-927-5433 or visit manitobadragonboat.ca