Hawthorn is supporting the fifth annual Dare to Hope match in 2026, when the Club hosts Geelong in the traditional Easter Monday blockbuster at the MCG in Round 4.
Ahead of the match next month, Dare to Hope CEO and Co-Founder Cherie Dear joined SEN's Gerard Whateley on Tuesday morning.
Dear is the window of late Hawthorn premiership player and Norm Smith Medallist Paul Dear, who passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2022, and mother of current Hawthorn players, Calsher and Maya.
Now in its fifth year, Dear shared what fans can expect on game day, whilst highlighting the importance of raising funds and awareness for the silent killer.
“We’ve got a really big day planned,” Dear said.
“One of the things we really want people to know right now is that pancreatic cancer is such a silent disease and has been so neglected for so long that people who have died from it are often just fairly quickly overlooked and forgotten.
“We’re bringing back the Bay of Hope in Yarra Park, and we really want people who know people who have died from pancreatic cancer to recognise the fact that their lives mattered. Get online, buy a silhouette, personalise it with their name so we can acknowledge the injustice of their deaths.
Dear said there are many ways to participate and support the cause.
“One of the things that constantly blows me away is my daughter Maya, is doing placement in at the moment for her paramedicine course and she messaged me this morning saying ‘Mum, I’m working with a nurse today who especially came down to the match last year because she lost her best friend to pancreatic cancer’,” she said.
“So, irrespective of if you barrack for Hawthorn or Geelong, come along to the game and raise your voices with us and say these people’s lives mattered. Make a donation, we exclusively fund medical research to change outcomes, we’re volunteer led, so nearly 100 percent of the money you donate goes to fund medical research which is the only way we’re going to change outcomes for people like Paul, my Dad, the over 4000 people dying every year.
“We are looking forward to a massive day inside the ground as well, and an opportunity for the whole crowd at the MCG to raise our collective voices and say we need better for the people that we love and who we have lost and those who are going to be diagnosed with no idea that it’s coming for them.”
Help paint the MCG purple in Round 4, get your Dare to Hope merchandise HERE or make a donation HERE.
