For the past 2 1/2 years, I’ve been very involved with raising money for breast cancer charities. In 2006, I participated in the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk in Philadelphia, walking 60 miles over the course of 3 days around the city of Brotherly Love. In 2007, I repeated the walk, this time in the Tampa Bay area. And this year, I’m walking for 2 days in New York City for the Avon Foundation.
These walks are a huge commitment for someone like me – I have a husband, three children, two dogs, a full time job, and I attend college. I not only spend a single weekend in the fall walking for 2 or 3 days, but I spend countless days in the time leading up to the events, fundraising, helping my team members, and training for the miles ahead. Next month alone I’ve got a charity yard sale to organize and two days in front of the grocery store for fundraising to schedule. I need to draft press releases to send to the newspaper. I need to train and motivate my team, and help them to raise money, as many who are walking with me are doing this for the first time. For the past two years, I have raised over $2000 for each of my events, which has been pooled with the money of the other walkers to make a huge contribution to breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment.
This blog has been a huge vehicle in my fundraising efforts. I began it in early 2006 as a way for my Philadelphia team to connect and share experiences, since we were so spread out (Florida, Michigan, and Maryland), but I kept blogging even after the 2006 walk. Last year, readers of my blog not only helped me to meet MY fundraising goal of $2200, they assisted my sister as well. It was right about the time when her mother had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, and my sister devoted all of her time to her mom. She was unable to fundraise for herself, so I took it upon myself to use this blog to raise over $700 for her account, and she was able to walk in 2007 thanks to your donations. It still blows my mind to think of all of YOU donating over $1200 to our breast cancer walks last year, because of this blog – THANK YOU!
It would be easy to say I’m too busy for something like this. And I am busy – with school, little league for my son, the parties and camps my daughters attend, the blogging I’ve committed to doing…but that would also be an excuse. As a healthy 31 year old woman, with two healthy breasts, I feel that it’s my duty to do this, and it’s a duty I happily accept. Maybe I feel a bit closer to the cause, because breast cancer has affected my family (which is the reason I began getting mammograms last year!) but breast cancer also affects women (and men!) who NO family history of cancer. If I had breast cancer, who would walk for me? Would you? I hope that you would!
When a women gets breast cancer, it affects everyone around her. Her husband is left wondering if he will find himself without a partner if his wife’s cancer can’t be cured. Her children wonder if their mom will be alright, or when Mommy will feel better. Her friends and coworkers resolve to do their monthly breast exams, and get mammograms on a regular basis. And of course, the patient herself makes a huge commitment to her healing. She gets sick from chemo, her hair falls out, and she may even lose her breasts.
That’s what I think about when I’m walking, and it’s hot, and humid, and my feet hurt, and my shin splints are aching. I think about that woman, scared, and nervous, and fighting for her life to stop this disease. She keeps fighting…and so I keep walking. We have a saying on the walk, that nothing is as tough as cancer. It’s easy to feel down and out when you’ve walked 17 miles that day, and you feel as though you can’t take another single step. But when I think of that woman fighting cancer…I know that I can take as many steps as are needed to STOP BREAST CANCER. I want to FIND A CURE, and walking is my way of doing so.
Why do I walk? I walk for those who can not. I walk for survivors, I walk for those who have lost their battles with breast cancer. I walk so that when my daughters are older, breast cancer has been cured. I walk so that the hundreds of thousands of people affected by breast cancer can have hope. I walk so that we won’t lose another mother, sister, aunt, or daughter from this disease.
It all starts by tying on your shoes and taking a single step.
