Three years ago his sister, Michelle, 22, died of cancer. Now he hopes, through fundraising at the Andrew Love Centre, to help others win their battle.
The centre needs to raise $4 million to help treat the 14,000 patients receiving radiotherapy across the Geelong and Barwon regions.
Riccardi joins Mayor Barbara Abley and author Sonia Orchard as three ambassadors appointed to spread the fundraising message.
Riccardi remembers his frequent visits during eight months to the centre while his sister was treated.
“We used to go in there and do a few things and play around and do jokes,” Riccardi said.
“It was just a good light-hearted way of spending two hours on a machine.
“To have the equipment right here on our back doorstep makes it a hell of a lot easier. Especially when they are crook, the last thing they want to do is travel an hour or so to have their treatment.”
Riccardi said one of his sister’s lasting legacies was raising more than $20,000 in the year before she died.
“The way she was at the time – she was pretty crook then, as well – just shows the courage that she had. It’s just unbelievable.”
The executive director of the Barwon Health Foundation, Kathryn Sydney-Smith, said most people knew someone who diagnosed with cancer at some stage of their lives.
“In Australia, one in three men and one in four women will be diagnosed with cancer by the time they turn 75 years of age,” Sydney-Smith said.
“Of those patients, over half will require radiotherapy at some stage during their treatment.”
The director of radiation oncology at the centre, Dr Rod Lynch, said 1,000 new patients were treated each year.
“The incidence of cancer in the region is anticipated to increase by three percent,” he said.
