HOMER — Next week, breast-cancer survivors from East Central Illinois will trade the familiar waters of Homer Lake for the shores of Lac du Bourget in the French Alps, joining thousands of dragon-boat paddlers from around the world for a weeklong celebration of survivorship.
The Prairie Dragon Paddlers, Illinois’ first breast-cancer-survivor dragon-boat team, will travel to Aix-les-Bains, France, for the 2026 Participatory Dragon Boat Festival, which starts Monday. The event is expected to bring about 4,500 participants from 320 teams representing 37 countries.
For the local nonprofit, the trip is more than an international sporting event. It is an opportunity for women who have experienced breast cancer, from diagnosis and treatment through recovery, to come together in camaraderie.
“It really does bring a lot of empowerment back to you when you’ve been going through treatment and chemotherapy, which can be really harsh on your body,” said Vanessa Faurie, the team’s executive director. “It’s a way to kind of get yourself back.”
The local team welcomed the public to Homer Lake earlier this month for its annual friends and family day, giving visitors a chance to experience the sport that has become central to the group’s mission.
The women practice twice a week during their May-to-September season and compete in breast-cancer-survivor divisions at dragon-boat races around the Midwest. Earlier this summer, the team won gold in both the 200-meter and 500-meter races at the Chicago Dragon Boat Festival.
But the trip to France will offer something different.
Held every three to four years by the International Breast Cancer Paddlers’ Commission, the weeklong celebration brings together women from around the world without the competitive focus of a typical race. This year marks the first time the international gathering will be held in France.
That sense of global community is familiar to board President Stephanie Harpst, a Prairie Dragon Paddler since the nonprofit’s earliest days. She traveled to New Zealand in 2023 with other breast-cancer paddlers and recalled seeing thousands of survivors from around the world participate in a parade of nations.
Harpst was approaching nine years past her breast cancer diagnosis at the time and said she had “become accustomed to putting family and other responsibilities” before herself.
Joining the team changed that.
It’s one of the “best decisions” she says she has ever made for herself, adding that the sport gave her her life back.
Now, she will be among the entourage traveling to France.
The global movement traces back to 1996, when Canadian doctor and researcher Don McKenzie challenged the long-held medical belief that women undergoing breast-cancer treatment should avoid strenuous upper-body exercise.
He launched a study placing 20 breast-cancer survivors in a traditional Chinese dragon boat, hypothesizing that the repetitive paddling motion would aid physical recovery and lymphatic drainage.
His research helped fuel a movement that has since spread around the world, with breast-cancer-survivor dragon-boat teams forming across dozens of countries.
Kelly Bradham, a registered nurse and social worker who founded the Prairie Dragon Paddlers, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012. In an earnest attempt to help other women regain strength and find support after treatment, she began researching dragon boating.
She eventually traveled to the Pacific Northwest to meet one of the pioneering U.S. teams.
“They invited me in the boat, and I didn’t paddle, but they were kind to me,” Bradham said. “They brought me to their team dinner at the end of the race … and they really encouraged me to get a team started here.”
Bradham spent about two years researching how to establish a team in East Central Illinois before the nonprofit was founded in 2015.
Today, the team has about 60 members from Champaign-Urbana and surrounding communities. Some are years past the end of their treatment, while others are still undergoing treatment.
Lorrie Pearson of Champaign joined the team about a year ago after her own breast-cancer diagnosis.
“I needed people to be around that knew what I was going through,” Pearson said.
That peer support is one of the reasons the organization wants to make the team accessible to more women in East Central Illinois.
The Paddlers use word of mouth, social media, educational events and connections with healthcare providers to reach potential members. Members also advocate for mammograms and early detection and encourage women to develop survivorship plans after treatment.
The organization also established the Prairie Dragon Paddlers Breast Cancer Research Fund at the University of Illinois to support research.
The international festival offers the women something that cannot be replicated at home: the chance to see just how large their community has become.
Faurie said dragon boating can begin as an unusual way for a breast-cancer survivor to exercise, but the relationships formed through the sport often become just as important as the paddling itself.
“We’re very, very fortunate,” Faurie said. “It’s really a camaraderie kind of group.”