Former Co-Chair of WICC Linda J. Wahrer
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Linda J. Wahrer, former co-chair, WICC: Don’t quote me on this, but I believe we’re actually now approaching $3 million since we started. It started small but now it just has a life of its own and the amounts just keep going up year after year. It’s been tremendously supported by the insurance industry in Canada.
Linda J. Wahrer is talking about the success of the Women in Insurance Cancer Crusade, also known as WICC. ILSTV sat down with Linda, a former co-chair of the organization, to learn more about the charity’s humble beginnings and how it has changed over the last ten years.
Linda J. Wahrer: I was involved almost from the beginning. WICC was started by two ladies, Linda Matthews and Mabel Sampson, who had just witnessed too many colleagues, friends, acquaintances, within the industry being affected by cancer and decided to mobilize a grass roots organization to raise funds within the insurance industry for cancer research.
Right after they got this started I joined them very early on. I was on the steering committee at the time. We started with a fund raising dinner, and the obvious thing to do was sell candles. With an acronym of WICC it just makes sense. So we actually had a dinner and got bids from everybody at the dinner to buy some candles to sell within their organization, or give them away . . . and that ended up being thousands of candles dispersed amongst the industry and it really got WICC going.
After that we started with the Ontario chapter, and it started with a dinner once a year that was organized and has now grown into over six hundred people coming to our dinner every year . . . our gala in March. We then added a learning breakfast, which is held every November, and that’s where we really get information out to the industry around the latest research techniques, preventative measures, all sorts of specialists and researchers have come to these breakfasts.
Also, we have a golf tournament in July of every year which is now the largest golf tournament held at Angus Glenn. We take over two courses so we put out about 250 golfers onto the course. And those are the pillars of our fund raising here in Ontario. We also grew to have chapters in BC, in Alberta. And we also have fund raising efforts in the East Coast where the money goes towards WICC. So right from early on, WICC made a deal with the Canadian Cancer Society that all the funds raised by WICC would flow directly to research projects. So there is no overhead taken off by the CCS. That money raised by WICC one hundred percent flows right through into research projects. WICC started as a breast cancer fund raiser and after a few years we broadened out our mandate to other forms of cancer. And the first one we added was prostate cancer. So our funds raised now also go to support prostate cancer in addition to breast cancer. And we have since broadened out after that to support other types of cancer research also. So what we have done is taken WICC, which was originally kind of known as a women’s organization, to now broaden out to now be both genders now with the support of prostate cancer. We’ve enhanced our base to have a lot of guys come to our events and support WICC. You look around our dinner now and probably 50/50 whether it’s men or women. So WICC has been extremely successful. We celebrated our 10th anniversary I think two years ago. (Interview shot in October 2009) We hope eventually to have chapters right across the country. We’re making great progress with that. And one day our dream is to have chapters right across Canada. We are now the largest single fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society as a group, so it’s been very, very successful .
The industry has embraced WICC. We went out a few years ago with corporate sponsorships. So we have numerous companies that have signed up for three year terms to be corporate sponsors of WICC . . . very successful. When we launched that initiative it was embraced by the industry and that gives us a guaranteed flow of funds coming through.
As well as our fundraising events, we have other things people can do like payroll deduction. Companies can hold their own events internally within their organization with proceeds to WICC. We have a toolbox on our website that directs people how they can engage themselves with WICC. We have individual memoriums and donations that can be put through our website in the acknowledgment of an individual. That’s taken off now so a lot of people can put their individual donations through the website. We have lots of different options, whether it’s at a company level or an individual level, how to engage in activities for WICC. It started small, but just now has a life of its own. And the amounts just keep going up year after year. It’s been tremendously supported by the insurance industry in Canada.
