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2023 Ride Dates - Stay Tuned

**** 2022 Tour de Rocks - Ride Finale ****

What a great event the 2022 Tour de Rocks Charity Bike Ride was!

Despite all the challenges thrown at us, we did it. Everyone should be so proud of what was achieved.

We are pleased to announce that the amount raised from the event was:-

$293,073

Since 2012, we have appropriated over $1,830,000 to Cancer Research Projects and Services.

The date for the 2023 event will be announced soon.

WE CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU ALL NEXT YEAR.

2022 - The Graham Family Goes Riding

Many of you will remember Zane Graham, from the Coastal Cruisers.

Zane rode in the Children's ride on Day 2 with his mother (Kate).

He then backed up to ride the final day with his father (Steve) and brothers (Brodie and Olly).

It was very special to see Zane lead everyone into Sport UNE Armidale for the finish of the ride.

Well done Zane. You are in inspiration to all of us.

Zane wrote this fantastic article, about the 2022 Tour de Rocks Ride, for his School Newsletter.

Please have a read (CLICK ON IMAGE BELOW) and I'm sure you will agree this sums up the Tour de Rocks experience and why we do what we do.

Thanks to Zane (and the Graham Family) for allowing us to share this fantastic article with our Tour de Rocks Community.

Stay tuned for the announcement of the date for the 2023 ride. There is still a bit to be done before we can announce anything.

But, it is going to be awesome!

We are already looking forward to seeing you all again in 2023.

Kay Endres

Chairperson

19 for 19 Challenge - 2022 here we go!

Dear Friends,

Thank you for supporting Anya’s Wish!

Your generosity has helped kick-start the Children’s Cancer Institute's (CCI) much-needed research to find more effective treatments for young osteosarcoma patients, and importantly, drug therapies which are more gentle for their bodies.

Anya was only 13 when she was diagnosed with high-grade metastatic osteosarcoma – an aggressive and life-threatening bone cancer. After a long and painful period of treatment and despite receiving positive results in August 2016, Anya’s cancer returned in May 2020 and she devastatingly lost her courageous battle on 12 September 2020.

Anya’s Wish was that her body and experience with the disease be focussed into research to end childhood sarcomas.

By supporting Anya’s Wish, you’re helping to leave a life-saving legacy for thousands of children who suffer with osteosarcoma every year. Thank you!

Research Update
Developing innovative ways of growing osteosarcoma cells in the lab to investigate novel drug treatments.

'Anya's Wish’ CCI researcher Zara Barger has been testing a panel of three similar drugs on previously acquired osteosarcoma cell cultures grown in the lab. These drugs have been selected out of more than 160 others which already registered for use in adult treatments, but which cannot as yet be used for children's osteosarcoma treatments until trialled and scientifically proven. We are excited to announce that CCI's experiments have revealed that one of these drugs (Drug A) is highly effective in killing osteosarcoma cells, while not affecting healthy, non-tumour cells.

It's a breakthrough!

World-first methods to fast-track early success.

But that’s not all. These experiments can only be done with live osteosarcoma cell cultures which until now have been very hard to grow and keep alive in the lab. So to help fast track their experiments, the CCI team have developed world-first methods of cultivating these cells more quickly, and keeping them alive for longer to help accelerate drug trials. CCI are currently writing these findings up for publishing and international peer review, while continuing to fine-tune their methods. This means that our efforts can be accelerated to find better and more gentle treatments for children with osteosarcoma, and save more young lives, sooner.

To date, our Anya's Wish team have established a protocol and tested five osteosarcoma patient live cell cultures, and Drug A continues to show promise. They plan to trial a further 10 patient samples over the next few months, and are very excited by the promise of these preliminary results.

Thanks to your support, the realisation of 'Anya's Wish' for more effective and gentle treatments for childhood osteosarcoma is looming, ever closer. It's not if, it's when.

19 for 19 Challenge - Sunday 16th October!

Last November, we launched the inaugural 19 for 19 Challenge. We're so grateful for those who joined us to honour the 19 precious years that Anya lived for, whether they participated in the 19km walk in Armidale or took part virtually from both near - Brisbane, Melbourne and Alice Springs - and far - Germany and Canada!

Together, we were able to raise over $130,000 to go towards our goal of $600,000 for osteosarcoma research.

Please join us in 2022! Rally your family and friends to walk 19 km with us in the breathtaking beautiful New England gorge country or join in your own 19 for 19 Challenge.

Again, thank you so much for all your wonderful support and honouring Anya's memory by joining us on this journey to discover more effective treatments for osteosarcoma.

With love,
The 19 for 19 Challenge Team!