Dalene Odendahl, a creditors clerk at Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing in Somerset West and a cancer survivor who used to be a regular runner, is one of the organisers of the Helderberg CANSA Relay For Life event.
The event, to be held on 6 February at the Hottentots-Holland High School near Somerset West in the Western Cape, raises money to support the more than 7,494 cancer patients through 152 support groups, as well as offering treatment and counselling in hospitals and care centres. Raised monies also go to conducting cancer screening tests and much needed education for men, women and children.
"Knowing how much the caring counsellors at CANSA Helderberg helped me, makes Tru-Cape's donation of apples for the Relay For Life event mean that much more to me. We also really appreciate the apple cutters that Tru-Cape is donating to the survivors' goodie bags. It is great to have an employer that is behind its staff and their projects," Odendahl says.
Conrad Fick, Tru-Cape's marketing director, says that there's plenty of research to suggest that apples and other healthy foods are an important part of the diet for all. As recently as 5 January 2016, the UK newspaper Daily Mail reported about the role that apples play in beating cancer:
"Researchers in Hawaii found that an increased consumption of quercetin (from apples and onions) was associated with a reduced risk of lung cancer. This was supported by epidemiologists from Finland's National Public Health Institute who concluded that a flavonoid-rich diet (and particularly those flavonoids from apples) was associated with a reduced risk of developing cancer," according to the newspaper.
"Their study of 9,959 cancer-free men and women revealed that people who regularly consumed the most flavonoid-rich foods were about 20% less likely to develop cancer. The researchers found that lung cancer was 46% lower among those on these diets and that high consumption of apples was also directly associated with the lowest risk for coronary mortality.
"This conclusion was based on their analysis of diet and health outcomes of an ongoing study of 5,133 Finnish men and women aged 30-69, who were initially free of heart disease when the study began in 1967," the Daily Mail reported.
Odendahl hopes that other companies will come forward to support their event. "We have a wish-list which we can email if you might be able to assist but companies and groups of friends can also enter teams into the relay to demonstrate their support", she ends.
