The donor: Alex Moshiri
The gift: Helping to raise $136,000 and climbing
The cause: Toronto’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
Alex Moshiri had never cycled much, but when he met his work colleague, Shlomit Shteyer, he jumped at the chance to ride for 200 kilometres.
Ms. Shteyer had joined Toronto-based BlueCat Networks Inc. a few years earlier and she’d organized a 10-member team to participate in the Ride to Conquer Cancer, a two-day cycling event from Toronto to Niagara Falls, Ont., that raises money for Toronto’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. Ms. Shteyer’s brother was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer, and she’d heard about the ride while being tested at Princess Margaret as a possible bone marrow donor.
“Her passion is infectious,” said Mr. Moshiri, 30, who is a manager of sales development BlueCat. His fiancé also had a brush with cancer several years ago, giving the ride even more meaning for him. “We overcame that, so I figured that bike riding and raising money seemed like the least I could do to help,” he added. Mr. Moshiri has done the event twice and he’ll be riding again this year, hoping to add to the $136,000 BlueCat has raised in total so far. “I plan to do this as long as I physically can,” he said.
Paul Waldie