Sisters Mandy and Tania Gray will hold Griffith's first ever Shine a Light on Lung Cancer event to raise awareness and funds for Lung Foundation Australia

The event will take place Saturday, November 5 and will feature a 30 to 45 minute walk around the park, as well as speeches, a gold coin donation sausage sizzle and a minute silence for those affected by lung cancer. All proceeds raised will go towards further research.

Sisters Mandy and Tania Gray decided to host the event after the latter was diagnosed with lung cancer in November last year, despite not having smoked for decades.

They said a major factor in deciding to host the walk was breaking down negative stigmas of those diagnosed with the disease.

"Even when I was in hospital the doctors said that since I hadn't smoked in so long they didn't think it would be lung cancer," Tania said.

"Yes, we want to break the stigma of lung cancer with smoking, but we're also trying to raise more awareness about it."

Despite her healthy condition and her medication being the best available, Tania said there's still a chance the the cancer could resurface one day.

"Every three months you go for your scans and it's always anxiety-inducing because you're not sure if this is the time it'll show up again," she explained.

"There's so much awareness about breast cancer and bowel cancer, but lung cancer is actually the biggest killer because there's not as much research that's gone into it."

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Her sister and event co-organiser Mandy agreed that breaking down stigmas were important.

"It's about changing people's perceptions on what lung cancer is. You don't have to be a smoker to get it," she said.

Mandy said anyone was welcome to join the event provided they register first via the Lung Cancer website by October 23.

Those who are able to raise $100 by that date will also receive a t-shirt and lantern for the walk.

Mandy said Griffith residents could also get involved in other ways, like holding their own fundraising event such as a bake sale or morning tea, or by donating directly to the sisters' official fundraising page.

She said she planned to make the walk a regular fixture on the Griffith calendar.

"It's only a small event because it's the very first one in Griffith," Mandy said. "But we'll do another one next year, we intend to have this annually."

"We want people to come to support the unknown and to learn about lung cancer and how underfunded it is," Tania added.

"We need support nurses, and we need all the other things cancer patients should have readily available."

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