Congratulations to all those students who lost their hair for CanTeen.At assembly this week we announced a $16,500 donation to CanTeen. This is an outstanding effort for a two week campaign. Moya Whiting from CanTeen told the College that this money would help them run camps, provide counselling, host events and numerous other activities that CanTeen run without government funding.

Well done on living out our motto ‘By Faith and By Work’

Mrs King shared the following with us, a book about her cousin who had a long association with CanTeen before losing her battle with cancer. What resonates with Mrs King is that her cousin wanted to be a teacher but didn’t – it is a reminder to us to make the most of everyday

TRUDI JOHNSTON’S DIARY – ‘LIVING WITH A BRAIN TUMOUR’

INSPIRATIONAL NEWSPAPER COLUMNS NOW A BOOK

To the all the pupils and their families, and all the Staff of St Bede’s,

Now that you have just done your big head-shave event to once again raise much-needed funds for CanTeen, it is a good time to thank everyone for all your amazing fundraising efforts over the years including the Run for Life, and to let you know about a book we have produced about our daughter, Trudi Johnston, called:

‘Trudi’s Diary – Living with a Brain Tumour’.

Trudi Johnston was a hardworking and enthusiastic member of CanTeen. After surviving Non Hodgkins Lymphoma as an 8 year old, Trudi found her calling in CanTeen and it became her passion to do as much as she could to help teenagers with cancer. She was Vice President of Otago/Southland and Canterbury divisions, and relished the opportunity these roles gave her to get CanTeen’s name and its purpose out there.

Unfortunately, in 2003 Trudi was once again called upon to fight the cancer battle when, at the age of 24 she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Whilst on treatment in 2004, Trudi spoke to the staff and pupils of St Bede’s about CanTeen, and let everyone know how much your huge fundraiser, the ‘Run for Life” helped the organisation do its work.

It was whilst Trudi was on chemotherapy that The Christchurch Star newspaper approached CanTeen to see if one of their members on treatment would write a diary for six months detailing their daily life on treatment. Trudi immediately put her hand up, she saw it as the perfect opportunity to raise awareness of CanTeen and the great work the organisation did helping young people with cancer.

And so it started…….Trudi faithfully submitted her diary detailing her weekly life with its highs and lows, and always with her unique brand of humour. Even after suffering a stroke from a brain bleed, she still managed to organise CanTeen camps and invent ‘101 ways to use your Bandanna’ for Bandanna Week! Her diary which she wrote for 20 months until she passed away, quickly produced a huge following, so much so that on the rare weeks when there was no column due to a setback in her battle with the brain tumour, people would ring up The ChCh Star very concerned about how Trudi was and why the diary wasn’t in the paper.

Now, all these years later, we have been able to compile all her diaries into a beautiful book as her legacy, and to hopefully raise a good amount of funds for CanTeen. We have added many photos and some of Trudi’s poems, and are now selling the printed book online. Already it is receiving great reviews from the people that have read it, and we have included a couple below.

We are donating all the net profit from the sale of the books to CanTeen, in honour of Trudi’s passion for the organisation and the tremendous work that it does for teenage cancer patients as you will all well know.