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Revelstoke karate instructor finds family in community

A GoFundMe campaign for Chic Sharp has raised more than $6,000 in two days
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(Jocelyn Doll/Revelstoke Review) Meghan MacIsaac and Chantal Faucher started a GoFundMe campaign for Chic Sharp, a long time karate instructor in Revelstoke, who is getting treatment for skin cancer in October.

Community members have come together to support long time Revelstoke karate instructor Chic Sharp as he battles skin cancer.

Chantal Faucher and Meghan MacIsaac started a GoFundMe campaign for Sharp last week and as of Friday morning had raised $6,355 of their $10,000 goal.

“Ten years from now or 20 years from now when I look back on this, that will be the thing I remember the most, how kind and generous people were and how they came together to help out,” Sharp said.

Sharp said he has known he had skin cancer for over a year.

“I was trying to avoid the radiation and/or chemotherapy by trying some natural remedies, but none of them worked,” he said.

Four months ago the tumour on his jaw started to grow at an alarming rate and that is when he went to the hospital, had it biopsied and started going through the treatment process.

Though Sharp plans to continue teaching through September, he has to travel to Kelowna on Sept. 4 to have a brace made for his head and neck, to hold him steady while he gets the radiation, and again on Sept. 17 for a CAT scan.

He moves to Kelowna for 28 days of treatment starting Oct. 4.

While Sharp is in Kelowna, Faucher will be covering his karate classes for him.

Faucher has been Sharp’s student since she moved to Revelstoke in 1997.

“I was at home with young kids and that was the first thing I did, I showed up to a karate class and Chic inspired me all the way to my second black belt,” she said.

Though he doesn’t know how the radiation treatment will affect him, Sharp is determined to be back teaching classes in November, however he will no longer have a beard.

“(My doctor said) you’re doing all the things that cause it to have the least effect on your body,” he said, which include being fit, eating well and not smoking.

Faucher and MacIsaac said that they hope the money raised will ease the financial strain that comes with living away from home and being unable to work for a month.

And Sharp is both grateful for the community support and determined.

“There will be a 10 or 20 years from now,” he said.