In Lunel, Cathy from Toledo sees life in blue and pink for a good cause

Cathy de Toledo , une seule femme et plusieurs engagements et combats. A. C.

À l’occasion de la Journée internationale des droits des femmes, rencontre avec l’une d’entre elles et son engagement quotidien sur le territoire lunellois.

She owes her commitment and involvement to her grandmother. "When someone died in the village, she was the one who came to surround the family and prepare the deceased."
This is how Cathy de Toledo evokes her ancestor Clothilde Gaillard, in whose skirts she lived her first years after her birth, in December 1953, in Nîmes.

Installed in Lunel since 1989

From the age of 3, Cathy de Toledo moved to the Hérault capital with her parents and did all her schooling there until obtaining her A2 baccalaureate.
The student continued with courses at the English faculty, followed by a BTS in trilingual secretarial work and completed her first professional hours, notably for Les Salins du Midi.

We are still far from her life as an active member of several associations in Lunel and, above all, from her presidency of the local branch of the League against Cancer, a position to which she acceded at spring 2022.

40 years of marriage to doctor André de Toledo

It’yet it was during her years of study that young Cathy met her "dear and tender", as she likes to call him: André de Toledo.
"I met him in 1975 and we got married in 1983. More than 7 years of reflection", says, with a smile, Cathy from Toledo who proudly advances her "40 years of marriage and happiness". Most of which was spent in the town of Lunel when her husband from Montpellier decided, in 1989, to open his medical practice there as a rehabilitation doctor.
"It’was rue du Bouzanquet and he never moved", relates “the’wife of the doctor, who begins to get involved in local life.

Commitments and challenges

"I have always had this desire, this very need, to get involved and help others, continues the president of the League against cancer in the territory. Being an only child is largely the reason that pushed me to go out and meet people. I have always associated with it and found friendship, the notion of a group and acting for it."

The kitchen apron and the pots behind the four walls of the fireplace, very little for her. She wants to assume her role as a mother but not just anyhow. Caty from Toledo then invested many years as parents during the schooling of her two children, Thomas and Flora. One of his first involvements in the city of Pescalune. It's the nineties.

Blue March: one month, two dates to remember

On the occasion of Blue Mars, the month dedicated to colorectal cancer, the local branch of the League Against Cancer is organizing two events.

Saturday March 9, at the media library, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., conference on “Female cancers, how to act and for what purposes ?”, followed by 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., discussions on “Colorectal cancer screening close to home”. Free.

Friday March 22, La Bise à Madame will give a solidarity concert on the Brassens stage, at 9 p.m. A tribute to Brassens at the price of 15 € for the benefit of the League.

Cultural and sports associations 

The ATP, under the presidency of Michèle Jung, attracted her just as much as sports clubs such as the hiking section of the ASPTT or the gymnastics club for which she joined ;occupies, alongside other volunteers, the office.

Not to mention the three hours of weekly pilates that she still continues to provide today for the Lunel railway workers' sports association (ASCL). Very busy time that Cathy de Toledo shares with two passions that drive her: cinema first, live performance then.

For this last part, she uses her finest pen for a collaboration with Vivantmag, an association for the distribution of live shows. Cathy de Toledo feeds the blog for Hérault and Gard.

"Idleness is not part of my vocabulary. Just as I need to always cultivate myself, emphasizes the super-active woman. There is also a notion of challenge, of challenge that nourishes me every day." Among these, Cathy de Toledo raised two.

In Arnaud's first mandate

Politics taps him on the shoulder when Claude Arnaud enters the race for the mayor's chair. "I was elected on the list and I was in charge of the school, youth and culture commission", indicates the advisor of the first mandate. A “career” which ended at the dawn of the second term due to various differences.

Whatever the quarrels and other different opinions, Cathy de Toledo launches into another fight: that of illness. "It’was the end of 2021. I read in Midi Librethat Jeanne Menichetti wanted to stop the responsibility of the Lunel branch of The League Against Cancer but that she could not find anyone, remembers the woman who had fought, a year previously, against the one she had at her breast. It was a cause that spoke to me all the more and it was also not possible for the antenna to disappear."

Make the League visible

Cathy from Toledo surrounds herself with other volunteers and takes charge of the league… March 8, 2022. As a sign for the future coordinator. Since then, the head of the Lunel branch has continued to strive to see life in pink in October and in blue in March. Two months respectively dedicated to screening for breast and colorectal cancers (read in box).

With, in its sights, a mission that it has granted itself: to make the League more visible with the support of the medical community, in particular the territorial professional health community (CPTS ).

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