The Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival 2023 celebrated its 20th anniversary of the festival where the Angels Abreast team was integral in the beginning of the Nanaimo Festival.
We hosted a Friday night dinner for all the Survivor teams with food, music, and dancing! One special event at the dinner is to celebrate first year survivors and every year after, circling around the years of survival with many tears and feeling of sisterhood.
The Survivor Challenge took place on Saturday where all survivors race together as we never want any breast cancer survivor to be left on shore.
This year our Flower ceremony was dedicated to the memory of Jane Frost, who with her vision and leadership promoted so many of us to get into a dragon boat.
Her "Last Word" post in Internationally Abreast was spoken by our MC.
To dig our paddles deep
To keep our gaze clear
To laugh a lot and out loud
To celebrate our lives
To mourn our losses
To work to find the cause of this disease, and
To know we are making a difference.
Our team wanted to remember Jane this year since nothing was done at the IBCPC festival.
Editors note:
IBCPC approached the Frost family in 2022 and asked if they would agree to allowing the flower ceremony at the 2023 Festival to be named after Jane. The family said no they just wanted the flower ceremony at the Concord Pacific in 2022 to be in honour of Jane’s memory.
Paddles Up!
Jill Edwards
Angels Abreast Dragon Boat Team
Nanaimo B.C
