Pros and Joes taking to the stage for a good cause at Laugh for the Cure

Learn how you can support the Ottawa Cancer Foundation through a night of laughter.

The Ottawa Cancer Foundation is hosting its fourth “Laugh for the Cure” event this month, bringing professional comedians and everyday folks on stage to raise money, awareness and joy.

The event takes place at the Westin Hotel on March 26. It will feature professional comedians Rory Gardiner, Rick Currie, Simone Holder, Pierre Brault, Alastair McAlastair, and Sarah Boston. They will be joined by five “Joes” who will do their own sets, including Pure Country 94’s Gord St. Denis, long-time sales executive Rick Hiladie, realtor Nick Fundytus, commercial real estate broker James Carty, and CEO of Catalais Consulting Jenny Chen.

The Joes are each raising funds for the Ottawa Cancer Foundation. Combine, they have raised more than $35,000. You can find their fundraising pages here.

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Ottawa Cancer Foundation director of events and community engagement, Tricia Ross, told CTV Your Morning Ottawa on Tuesday that the event is an important fundraiser for the foundation, but that’s not its only purpose.

“The fundraising aspect is really important. To be able to run our free programs and services, we need to have the funds to do that. Equally as important is the community engagement aspect. We know that, in that audience of 350 people, that someone will have been impacted by cancer and someone will be impacted tomorrow. So, we want people know how to find us, what we do, how we can help. It’s all about lifting our community and helping people who are struggling,” she said.

Chen also spoke to CTV Your Morning Ottawa and said part of the reason she stepped up this year is because of her husband’s cancer journey.

“I was really grateful when Trish asked me because my husband was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in 2020 and it was a really personal journey for us to go through. During that time, joy and laughter really got us through some of those harder moments, so I couldn’t think of a better way to raise awareness for everything the Ottawa Cancer Foundation does than participate in this,” she said.

Chen has raised more than $22,000 for this year’s event.

“We joke about what we know, so I’m spending five minutes roasting my husband… I think that during his journey, he felt like he was going it alone and just to see this incredible community rally around his story, our story, he’s so incredibly grateful,” she said.

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Ross says the foundation works throughout the year to recruit people, based on their community network, based on their leadership, based on their potential to be funny. The Joes then receive some help from the pros.

“From there, they work with a coach, so we have five local comedians who train our five leaders and they do that for a number of months ahead of time and then they hit the stage on March 26,” she said.

Tickets to Laugh for the Cure are available on the Ottawa Cancer Foundation’s website. Individual tickets are $250. A table of eight with on-site sponsorship recognition is available for $2,500.