Angels tackle stairs for a cause

Bryan’s Angels continue successful fundraising track record

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Photo: Claudine Lavoie Photography

You could say two-time cancer survivor Bryan Mudryk has angels watching over him. And you’d be right.

Created by one of his best friends, Bryan’s Angels was founded in 2011 by Sheyanne Levall, who rallied Mudryk supporters to raise money in his honour, and for others touched by cancer. The goal that first year was to see participants climb 200 sets of 202 steps, both ways. The Angels completed 220 sets and raised $22,000. The group, which has grown to 25 members from 11, was working to complement Mudryk’s own fundraising, for his annual golf tournament in Boyle, Alberta.

For the past four years, the Angels have hosted “A Night with Bryan’s Angels” red-carpet party at the Lexus dealership in west Edmonton, and a stair-climb challenge on the bank behind Edmonton’s Royal Glenora Club, both to raise funds for the Cross Cancer Institute via the Alberta Cancer Foundation. The Angels’ events have taken off, raising nearly $300,000 in the group’s five-year lifespan.

This year’s fundraising goal was $75,000, for which Bryan’s Angels set out to climb a combined 1,000 sets of stairs in exchange for pledges at the event in early June. “It started at 9 a.m. and we had 25 angels climbing,” says Levall. Mudryk also flew in for this year’s Lexus red-carpet soiree, which was also held in early June.

“It’s been so inspiring watching Bryan do everything that he’s done,” says Levall. “It truly was just an opportunity to help him reach his goal and make a difference. Once we started seeing the difference our money was making, as one of the Angels Claudine [Lavoie] said, ‘it filled a void I didn’t know I had.’ Our motto is that together we will make a difference – one step at a time.”

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