October 24th I participated in my thirteenth Making Strides Breast Cancer walk. I began walking with my sisters in memory of my grandmother, Elizabeth Wood, who passed away from breast cancer. Years later (2003) my sister, Denise Bachmann Klotz, passed away from the same dreaded disease. We now walk in both their memories, last year as well as this year Russell Veggies sponsored teams to walk. Last year we had a small team of walkers only about twelve of us walked. But this year, well that’s a whole different story. This year I asked the same people to walk again and we were going to try and get a few more to join us. A co-worker of mine (Andria Cardoso) asked if we could walk in honor of her mother, Patti Cardoso, a two time survivor of breast cancer. She began gathering friends and family to join us and we asked member and employees of the Floyd County Y to join us. Before we knew it we had 100+ walkers. It was then when we asked the Y to let us use their buses for transportation and to see if they wanted to co-sponsor us in the walk. They were willing to help with transportation as well as help with purchasing t-shirts for the walkers.
What a wonderful day we had for the walk. We probably had 80 walkers to ride buses and caravan to the Waterfront Park in downtown Louisville. Together we raised almost $2,500 in support of the American Cancer Society. This money helps thousands of breast cancer patients and their families face their journey through services such as Reach to Recovery and Look Good…Feel Better.
Thank you all who participated and made donations to our team. Thanks also to the Y for your support and sponsorship. We are already making plans for next year and we hope to have even more walkers next year. If you want to join us next year contact me… valarie@russellveggies.com