Breast cancer awareness event raises more than $1 million
ALBANY -- It's not every day you see Vietnam veteran color guard members wearing pink camouflage hats, their black combat boots also sporting pink laces.
"You can't buy these," said Rick Calordino, a member of the Troy County Council Vietnam Era Veterans, who kicked off the 14th annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk in Washington Park Sunday along with his five fellow color guard members. Calordino, who is battling throat cancer, bought the hats online and sewed matching pink handkerchiefs himself. "No one is weird enough to sell pink dickeys," he said.
The veterans were among the 12,000 people who participated in what organizers believe is the largest memorial walk held yearly in the Capital Region. This year's breast cancer awareness walk, which is sponsored by the American Cancer Society, raised more than $1 million, with proceeds split between research, education and outreach.
"It's a great opportunity to raise awareness about the journey of a cancer patient," said Diana Martin, regional vice president of the American Cancer Society. who lost her father to brain cancer when she was 3 years old.
Pat Rushby of Halfmoon was one of the many walkers Sunday wearing pink T-shirts with the word "Survivor" emblazoned on the back.
Rushby's 7-centimeter tumor wasn't detected on a mammogram because it was deep in her chest. But her gynecologist believed something was wrong and eventually found the mass. Rushby had a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation, and she has now been cancer-free 14 years after her tumor was first discovered.
The retired fifth-grade teacher from Mohonasen now recruits about 40 to 60 people from the school district a year to either sponsor or walk with her.
Members of Kathy Plakas' family wore white T-shirts Sunday honoring her, two years after the 51-year-old Long Island native lost her battle with cancer. The mother of eight appeared in remission after enduring a double mastectomy. But a year later the cancer spread to her liver, and Plakas spent the next seven years battling it.
The Plakas family joined the walk only two weeks after her death, and have come back since.
"When we first walked in we thought there was a concert or something. It's amazing how many people show up," said Plakas' son, George, of Niskayuna.
Many others like the Plakases make it clear who they are representing on their clothing, whether it be a family member, friend, co-worker -- or in Tamara Webster's case, a teen idol.
Webster of Cohoes and four friends walked Sunday to honor Webster's grandmother, Joan Lambert, a breast cancer survivor. But the ladies also wanted to pay homage to their childhood musical crush, New Kids on the Block, because one of the group member's mothers had breast cancer. The New Kids fans had a name for themselves stitched on the back of their tye-dyed pink T-shirts Sunday: "Blockheads 4 Boobies."
Lauren Stanforth can be reached at 454-5697 or by e-mail at lstanforth@timesunion.com.
Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=854368#ixzz0URVcq7Tv
No comments:
Post a Comment