About Us
Why “The Strength Squad”? An Active Legacy.
The Strength Squad was founded with a mission to make a positive impact on the care and support of colorectal cancer patients by harnessing the transformative power of exercise physiology on physical and mental wellbeing.
Steve’s Story
Father of two young girls, Steve Thompson bravely fought colorectal cancer for 2 years before his passing in 2023, facing each challenge with strength and grace.
During his treatment, Steve discovered the positive impact of exercise physiology, which significantly enhanced both his mental and physical well-being. Exercise became a cornerstone of his treatment experience, making a profound difference in his journey. Determined to ensure others facing similar battles could benefit, Steve laid the groundwork for a foundation devoted to providing colorectal cancer patients with access to exercise physiology during their treatment—leaving a lasting legacy before his passing.
The Thompson Family Endowment is a principal contributor to The Strength Squad program and delivering on Steve’s vision to positively impact the lives of cancer patients.
Nicole’s Story
At just 32, Nicole Cooper OAM was diagnosed with Stage 4 bowel cancer in 2017 shortly after welcoming her son Joshua with husband Tim.
Given 18–24 months to live, she sought a second opinion that challenged the statistics, leading to an extraordinary journey of 13 surgeries, 70 rounds of chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and radiotherapy over nearly six years.
Putting her management consulting career on hold, Nicole became a leading cancer patient advocate in Australia, passionately campaigning for better treatments and patient outcomes while raising her son, undergoing intensive treatment, and building powerful connections across the healthcare community.
Impatient Advocacy was founded to continue Nicole’s hard work in order to improve the lived experience of cancer patients today.
An Active Legacy
The Strength Squad is a program fully subsidised by The Thompson Family Endowment Fund and powered by Impatient Advocacy. Impatient Advocacy’s passion is helping to improve the daily lives and longer-term outcomes of people diagnosed and currently living with cancer. They aim to do this through advocacy, funding, assistance, and action.
A main focus of both partners is to fund, enable, and encourage exercise as part of the treatment plan for cancer patients - this has been made possible by the combined mission of The Strength Squad and with specialised health experts The EP Group delivering the program.
If you’d like to contribute, you can pay it forward here.
If you or someone you know would like to to contribute to fund more places in The Strength Squad program, or to provide other forms of support, please reach out to us or donate here.
