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About 3,300 people registered early for the Gundersen Lutheran 5-mile walk — in mild temperatures with enough sun to keep things upbeat — to raise awareness of breast cancer and funds for research. And there were plenty of walk-ups.
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Sarah Barton, left, and Laura Wagner walk down 7th st. during the third annual Steppin' Out in Pink walk for breast cancer research and awareness..
Erik Daily |
Last year’s walk drew 3,180 people.
The clothing inventory, too, signaled things were going well.
“What I noticed (is that) we had a lot of survivor hats — we went through so many that we ran out,” Kroner said.
Some walk-ups had to wait for their pink “Steppin’ Out” T-shirts until the end of the event, when unclaimed reserved shirts were released.
And when Gundersen Lutheran’s Team PBS — patient business services — brought in a check for nearly $20,000, co-chairwomen Patty Brown and Debbie Kroner were confident the event would match last year’s fundraising effort of $235,000.
The number of teams was up this year, too, among them Team WIBA — Whitehall, Independence, Blair and Arcadia, all homes of Gundersen Lutheran-affiliated facilities.
Gail Pietrek of Tri-County Memorial Hospital in Whitehall, walked as part of Team WIBA with her 5-year-old daughter, Emma.
Like many walk participants, Gail Pietrek, with her sister Jane Slabik of Onalaska and Slabik’s 10-month-old daughter Isabella, walked in memory of people in their lives who died of breast cancer. They carried a roster of the people who inspired Team WIBA: 10 people who died of the disease, four people who had breast cancer but are now cancer-free, and four more who are fighting the disease.
For four hours, walkers in pink T-shirts traversed a pink-ribbon-marked course that began at the Gundersen Lutheran walking trail, took Seventh Street to Jackson Street and then West Avenue to South Avenue, before returning to Seventh Street and its starting point, which was a veritable breast cancer awareness city set up on the blacktop.
Vendors in tents — “Under the Pink Top” — pledged a portion of their proceeds to the event, and Norma’s Place shared information about breast cancer and the Norma J Vinger Center for Breast Care at Gundersen Lutheran. Walkers visiteed the refreshment tent, and many of the hundreds of children who either walked or rode strollers or wagons enjoyed kids’ games.
And there was the Paula J. Tower Breast Cancer Support Award.
Tower was a mammography technologist at Gundersen Lutheran for more than 16 years. Diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2004, she died in 2007.
Her children received the first award. On Saturday morning, co-chairwoman Brown, herself a cancer survivor, received the second, for her “continued support and advocacy,” Kroner said.
The fundraiser
This year’s Steppin’ out in Pink fundraising goal was $240,000, to be added to the $420,000 raised the first two years. The long-term goal is $1 million to endow the Norman L. Gillette Jr. Cancer Research Fellowship to support full-time research at the Norma J. Vinger Center for Breast Care at Gundersen Lutheran. The families of Norman L. Gillette and Donald and Norma J. Vinger will match that figure once the goal is met.
Final tallies of participation and fundraising will be available Monday.
