We are sincerely grateful to lung cancer patient, Christine Roberts-Whitcombe and her family; husband Brent, children; Ella and Jack, for their tremendous leadership and support with fundraising to increase the awareness of lung cancer and for their advocacy to highlight the inequalities that exist for lung cancer patients and their families.

The Whitcombe family established a lung busters team (kids supporting mum with lung cancer) that participated in the John West 12k Traverse at the Auckland Marathon.

The lung busters were supported by friends and colleagues, including; Dominic Simons, Joe Berman and Tom Leon-Brown.

The lung busters were supported by more than one hundred people who together donated/raised $6,273.27 for Lung Foundation New Zealand’s lung cancer programme.

We praise Christine for her courage in sharing her story to raise awareness about lung cancer. Christine is a never smoker and her diagnosis challenges the common assumption that all people who get lung cancer smoke, have smoked in the past, or have been exposed to second hand smoke.