Celebrating 30 years of the Sun Life Walk Cure to Diabetes for JDRF

Walk 2023 Montreal Ribbon Cutting

Throughout June more than 40 communities gathered across Canada to raise funds for type 1 diabetes research.

The Sun Life Walk to Cure Diabetes for JDRF is the largest fundraising event in Canada that brings together the type 1 diabetes (T1D) community to raise funds for T1D research. A fun-filled family and community celebration, the Walk has raised more than $137 million to date over its 30-year history – making it one of the longest running and most successful fundraising events in Canada.

The collective fundraising goal is $3.1 million that will go towards research into cures for T1D.  This year is the 30th anniversary of the Walk and JDRF is proud to celebrate three decades of progress, commitment, and improving lives for people affected by T1D.

June was once again designated as Walk Month and to date more than $2.7M has already been raised in support of the most promising diabetes research.  Additional Walks are planned for the fall, including Walks in Hamilton, Niagara, Sudbury, Peel and the Walk in Halifax which was delayed due to ongoing wildfires.

The Walk is more than just a fundraiser. It’s a chance for families living with T1D to get together, share their stories and gain support. Many Walks had a tent and activities designated specifically for new families, sponsored by Abbott Diabetes Care and supported by JDRF Volunteers to provide the most up to date information and resources. As well, trained Research volunteers were on-hand at several sites to provide participants with information on the latest updates in T1D research.

Games were set up for the kids and emcees helped keep the energy going with music. Each Walk location provided their own unique offerings to make the day one to remember for the T1D community.

At the Toronto Walk, we were joined by JDRF ambassadors Max Domi and Kaleb Dahlgren, who met with families, took photos and helped to lead the warm-up. It was very moving for many newly-diagnosed families to meet two exceptional athletes with T1D and hear that diabetes doesn’t have to mean giving up on your dreams.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all our sponsors. With their support, we were able to offer an incredible day of community spirit with valuable resources for T1D families and innumerable connections made. Across Canada, the Walk was truly a celebration of 30 years of progress in T1D research, with the recognition that there is much work to be done.

Thank you so much to our Walkers, volunteers, donors and our national partners. We could not have done it without you. Together we walked, to one day cure T1D.

Our Sponsors
The Sun Life Walk to Cure Diabetes for JDRF 2023 Sponsors

Local Partners


Booth Sponsors
Farm Girl
Pizza Hut Limited Partnership

Corporate Champions
Alberta Milk
BASF Bryanna Higgins
The BC Dairy Foundation
Blundell Seafoods Ltd.
Capital Ford Lincoln
Capital GMC Buick Cadillac
The Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy Rochdale
Pineapple Therapy
Pure Orthodontics
River City Events
TD Asset Management
Universal Collision Centre
Weigl Enterprises Inc.

Gift In Kind Partners
Alberta Cloth Co. (Edmonton) Ltd.
Elite Auto Centre
GES Canada Inc.
Hotel X Toronto
The Low Carb Company
Pizza Nova
RE/MAX Edmonton Area & Associates
Rockets Candy Company / Ce De Candy Company Ltd.

Why we Walk: The Schaub Family shares their story

Receiving a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (T1D) for their child can be overwhelming for a family. And it was no different for Tienne and Andreas Schaub, when on April 4th 2022, they learned their daughter Leia had T1D.

To honour Leia’s first year ‘diaversary’ (anniversary of her T1D diagnosis date) the family has put together a team for Vancouver’s Sun Life Walk to Cure Diabetes for JDRF, and Leia has the taken on the role of being the BC Ambassador – something the family considers a privilege.

“Over the past year, we have learned a tremendous amount as a family and have adapted to the new lifestyle. Leia continues to be strong and brave every day. From hiding under the table, crying, and refusing to let us give her an insulin injection, to now doing her own finger pokes, knowing how to read her blood glucose levels and what to do when she is having a low, and even prepping the needles for her shots – all amid starting kindergarten. Pretty amazing for a 5-year-old! She is our hero,” say Tienne and Andreas. 

Like many families, the Schaubs recall noticing out of character behaviour from their daughter in the days leading to Leia’s diagnosis.

“We still vividly remember the day she was diagnosed. For the week leading up to it, we noticed that she was always thirsty and going to the bathroom more than usual. She also seemed to be triggered more easily and very emotional. We started looking up the symptoms and everything pointed to diabetes. We thought “that can’t be, right? No one in our family has type 1 diabetes,” remember Tienne and Andreas. 

“On the Sunday before her diagnosis, she became lethargic and just wanted to lie around all day – not normal for a 4-and-a-half-year-old. So, the next day, we brought her to the doctor and within two hours of getting her blood work, we were called to bring her to emergency right away as her blood glucose was in the forties when it should be between 4-8. Those first few hours seemed like days as we watched her cry and yell as she was afraid to get her finger pokes and had to hold off eating and drinking. Her emotions were out of her control due to her high blood glucose levels, and she was screaming and kicking around in her hospital bed. We have never seen her like that before,” they continue.

There are an estimated close to 300,000 Canadians living with T1D – and this number is increasing at an alarming rate.In fact, Canada now has the fifth highest incidence rate of T1D in children aged 14 years and younger in the world, and researchers still don’t know why.

And while Tienne and Andreas recognized some signs and symptoms of T1D that Leia was experiencing, many parents don’t make the connection to diabetes until it’s a medical emergency. The prevailing medical wisdom used to be that T1D developed quickly, with a sudden onset of symptoms. Thanks to advances in screening and a better understanding of the human immune system, we now know that T1D does not develop suddenly but in fact the disease process usually starts long before insulin is required. Because most people do not have a family history of T1D, symptoms and a diagnosis often come out of the blue. In 25-45% of diagnoses in children in Canada, this unexpected diagnosis comes with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA).

Fortunately for Leia, the family was lucky to have caught her T1D early enough that she did not go into DKA which can be life-threatening and result in a prolonged stay in ICU. They were allowed to go home after a one night stay in the hospital. 

Eventually after the insulin she needed started to kick in, Leia became her normal self again. The family was very grateful to everybody at BC Children’s Hospital for being extremely supportive and helpful in guiding them through those first few challenging days. There were even two clowns who visited the family during their hospital stay that brought a lot of joy to Leia. 

Over the next few days, the family went back to the hospital to learn how to manage type 1 diabetes together. This is a disease that affects an entire family, and the Schaubs along with their extended family approached Leia’s care as a collective.

They quickly came across JDRF and within the first two weeks after Leia’s diagnoses, they received a Bag of Hope, a toolkit with useful resources for children and teens who have been diagnosed with T1D and their caregivers. Along with educational materials, the Bag of Hope includes Rufus, the Bear with Diabetes® — to help show children that they are not alone while learning to take injections and test blood glucose levels.

JDRF also helped to connect Tienne and Andreas with peer support within one week of Leia’s diagnosis, which was extremely helpful to answer all the random questions they had and to talk to another parent who had gone through the same experience. 

Part of the reason why Tienne and Andreas joined the Sun Life Walk to Cure Diabetes is to help educate others who don’t have personal experience with T1D on how much a life and family is changed by a diagnosis, and why funding the research towards cures is so important.

“Leia (or any person with T1D) needs to check her blood glucose level at least 4-5 times a day (before every meal, at bedtime, whenever there are symptoms of a low/high) through finger pokes drawing blood that then gets applied to a glucometer. We did this process for the first few months after diagnosis and often checked her at night as well (midnight and 3am) by doing extra finger pokes to catch a low that might happen overnight and would otherwise go unnoticed. Lots of sleepless nights for us at the beginning and lots of sugar tablets and snacks in the middle of the night for Leia to get her blood glucose back to a safe range,” they explain.

“Now we use a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) which is a sensor that Leia wears on her abdomen 24 hours a day. It allows us to monitor her blood sugar remotely even while she is at school. It will also send us alarms on our phones, so we only need to wake her at night when her low blood glucose alarm goes off.

Still – before each meal, we need to calculate the amount of carbohydrates that Leia will eat and give her insulin shots to match the carbs in her food. That’s 4-5 shots a day and sometimes even more, especially during growth spurts or when she has a cold. There were times where we had to give her 2-3 extra shots at night to correct unexpected high blood glucose levels. It’s a constant balancing act. And there are no breaks, no days off,” they continue.

The family recently did the TrialNet screening to see if there was a genetic component to Leia’s T1D. They were especially worried about their younger son Rudi, as having one child with T1D elevates the risk for siblings to develop the disease as well.

“It’s a big relief to have this screening available as there were several times since Leia’s diagnosis where we were worried or paranoid about Rudi developing T1D and we did finger pokes on him too,” says Andreas.

 TrialNet screens for specific autoantibodies in the blood that make a T1D diagnosis more likely. Fortunately, at the time of screening, all the family’s tests came back negative for these autoantibodies. Research shows that while first-degree family members of T1D are at an elevated risk of developing T1D, like with Leia – around 85-90% of newly diagnosed cases do not have a direct family connection.

It’s been a tumultuous year of learning to adapt to the ‘new normal’ that comes after a T1D diagnosis in a family, but the Schaubs have already made a commitment to giving back and helping the other families who will come after them on this journey with T1D.

Team Leia’s Unicorns has set an ambitious goal of raising $40,000 for type 1 diabetes research, and the family is confident they will reach it.

“We are walking and fundraising with the hope that one day, there will be a cure – not just for Leia – but for every child and every family affected by type 1 diagnosis. JDRF has been with us from day one and has helped us stay positive throughout our journey,” say Tienne and Andreas. They encourage everyone to please support them and the Walk and help to turn type one into type none.

Thank you, to everyone.

The 2021 Sun Life Walk to Cure Diabetes for JDRF brought together Canadians from coast to coast to unite and raise funds to accelerate the pace of type 1 diabetes (T1D) research.

We’re so excited to have had members of the community come together in our brand new, Virtual Walk Environment, mingle with friends old and new, explore our sponsor fair, and check out the Walk grounds as if you were there in person! 

Because of your incredible support, you helped raise over $2.37 million for critical funds that will support cutting edge research and meaningful community programming.  A HUGE thank you!    

By joining the Walk, you helped support breakthroughs that get us closer to a cure. You brought us closer to turning type one into type none. Together, we made a difference. 

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our sponsors, who helped make the Walk a success, allowing us to raise critical funds needed for T1D research. With their support, we were also able to offer an incredible day filled with entertainment, special guests, inspirational stories, and resources for T1D families. 

Thank you to everyone for your incredible support. We can’t wait to see you next year. 



Onsite

Ypsomed

Patchabetes

BMO JDRF Mastercard

Pizza Hut

Dex4

MedicAlert


Family Videos

Academy of Learning

Sentinel Storage/
Access Storage

Sentinel Storage

Cosmo Club

Capital GMC Buick/Capital Ford Lincoln/Universal 


Corporate Champions

Alberta Milk

Cavendish Farms

Gateman Milloy 

Redhead Equipment Limited

Walmart 

Barrhaven Optometric Centre

Diabetes Care Guelph

Harvard Developments

Riverview

Bedford Lions

Dura Construction

Middleton and District Lions Club

Sask Lotteries