Bob and Grace Gardner with their daughter Judith Hildenhagen.
By Shaun Inguanzo
BOB Gardner has lost a twin brother and a daughter to cancer but he has not lost his spirit to fight for a cure.
The Eumemmerring resident this year sold $3000 of Daffodil Day fundraising goods, including pens, stickers and badges, in his sixth year of fundraising in Autumn Place, Doveton.
Daffodil Day was last Friday 25 August and the event is an annual fundraiser held by the Cancer Council Australia with proceeds going to cancer research.
Mr Gardner said he began the fundraising activity along with daughter Judith Hildenhagen after his 37-year-old daughter Anne died of bowel cancer.
“The reason I am doing it is to help make it easier for people in the future so they don’t have to go through what we’ve been through,” he said.
“It’s one of those things you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
“It is hard to accept but you have to learn to live with it.
“I had to just get used to the fact I was not going to see my daughter on this side of the range.”
Mr Gardner thanked local shopkeepers for their generosity including the Foodworks supermarket that stored the fundraising goods overnight, and the post office that helped him with banking the funds.
Mr Gardner also thanked his other daughter Catherine Maxwell, and his granddaughter Louise, who both raised ‘a few hundred dollars’ each.
