Giuliano Todaro’s next journey: 1L student to run 200 km for childhood cancer research
April 11, 2025
By Kaleigh Rodgers | Photography: Provided
First-year student Giuliano Todaro has been beating the odds since he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at 10 years old.
Through three grueling years of treatments at SickKids Toronto, Todaro met each day with optimism and turned his challenges into an opportunity to invest in helping others. A year into treatment, Todaro and his family founded Giuliano’s Journey, a foundation focused on raising funds and awareness for childhood cancer research.
“On the second day of my treatment, I had the idea to help people right away, but it came into fruition a bit later,” said Todaro. “We started to raise money for purchasing fridges for patient rooms to make it easier for kids to store home-cooked meals. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible, but we shifted to targeting all our money raised towards research development and awareness for leukemia.”
On May 2, 2025, Todaro is taking on his next challenge–a 200-kilometer run starting at Western Law to his hometown of Vaughan, Ontario in support of SickKids. Todaro hopes to raise $10,000 for the children’s hospital through this fundraiser adding to the total of over $250,000 he has raised since 2011 through his foundation’s annual gala.
“The idea for the run was inspired by participating in the Terry Fox run in elementary school,” said Todaro. “I was talking to my friends and said, ‘imagine if we did that for Giuliano’s Journey.’ I thought running from London to Vaughn would be symbolic of how my life’s journey has led me to Western Law and to then head back home after exams as a big celebration.”
Throughout Todaro’s educational and philanthropic pursuits, he has drawn inspiration from the resilience he witnessed in his friends from SickKids and the example set by his family. His father’s experience as an Italian immigrant, and his uncle’s ability to persist as an author despite the challenges of diabetes, are also touchstones offering continual motivation.
“When you're at SickKids you see kids going through a lot, but they don't complain. I guess my resilience came from the environment and seeing other people be so strong and wanting to help them,” he said. “My parents and my uncle also inspire me a lot. My uncle’s former career as a lawyer and judge, and my mom’s career as a paralegal, influenced me to study law.”
With a bachelor’s in business administration, Todaro saw law school as a natural progression in his educational journey and an opportunity to develop his advocacy skills. While he’s still navigating which area of law to pursue, he’s grateful for opportunities like the Dispute Resolution Clinic at Western Law that allow him to explore various interests including corporate and health law.
“I ended up choosing the JD program because it allows me to keep the door open to opportunities in business and I also get to practice advocacy,” he said. “It’s going to help me with public speaking and generating awareness with people on a broader spectrum about issues like leukemia and SickKids. It will make me a more confident advocate for not only myself and my future career but also my foundation.”
For Todaro, there’s still a lot to look forward to at Western Law. So far, the support of his professors and friends from his small group have been the highlight. He shares that he can already sense many connections will become long standing friendships.
“One of the people who's helping me on the team for my run is my small group classmate and friend Michael Worona. When I told him about the run, right away he was hands on,” said Todaro. “He said, ‘I want to help. I want to donate, but I also want to run with you.’ He's decided to run the entire thing with me. That just speaks to some of the Western Law community.”
While Todaro acknowledges the difficulty of a 200-kilometer, week-long run, he has always had a penchant for making the impossible possible. Whether it was continuing to play soccer and do karate against doctor’s orders during chemotherapy, or persisting with his dream to complete a professional soccer contract in Italy after a broken ankle delayed his plans, Todaro never backs down from his goals.
“200 kilometers is obviously no easy feat. I wanted to show people that, yeah, this is hard, but what the kids go through at SickKids is 10 times harder.” said Todaro. “I always like to do the impossible. I like to be actively challenged. I like when people say no, you can't do that.”
Western community members are welcome to show their support at the run kick-off event in the Moot Court Room at 11:00 A.M. on May 2. Visit the SickKids website to support Giuliano’s Journey.
