Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Walking for a Cure: Willow Glen resident Debbye Harmer, with her canine training partner Rodin, was one of more than 3,000 walkers who participated in the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day walk. Harmer raised $3,000 for the walk which started in Santa Clara and ended in San Francisco--a distance of more than 60 miles.
Residents sweat for good cause
Walkers and crew members helped raise money to fight cancer
By Kate Carter
Several members of the Willow Glen community hit the turf last weekend to raise money in the fight against breast cancer, and in so doing entered a special community all their own.
They walked, or assisted those who did, from Santa Clara to San Francisco--a distance of more than 60 miles--from July 27 to 29, as part of the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day event. The event, one of nine of its kind in the country, to raise more than the $7 million it raised in its initial outing last year.
The approximately 3,000 walkers, who each raised more than $1,900 individually, gained the strength of being together in the struggle against a disease that claims more than 40,000 American lives every year.
"We're trying to find a cure," said walker Karen Davis, a Willow Glen resident. "You think you're alone when you're going through this. You're so wrong."
This was Davis' second year as a walker in the event.
"I loved it so much, I signed up again, right away," she says of her first experience. "I still get teary thinking about last year. I'm still carrying that feeling with me. This is a cause I totally believe in."
The event, produced by Pallotta TeamWorks of Los Angeles, is one of the fundraisers for the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, launched by Avon Products Inc. in 1993, says event spokeswoman Julie Basa.
The company distributes the money it raises through its nonprofit Avon Products Foundation to agencies that provide financial assistance and support to low-income breast cancer patients, survivors and their families, as well as to outreach and early-detection programs and medical research organizations.
Davis, 39, says she walked last year in honor of the mothers of her two best friends, one of whom died of breast cancer during their senior year in high school and the other who is a survivor. This year, she says, she walked to rejoin the community of people--some survivors themselves--who believe they can do something that seems impossible.
"It's like doing three marathons, three days in a row," Davis says. "You're walking with survivors, and they're kicking your butt down the trail. "It's overwhelming, it's so emotional and uplifting and inspiring."
Stretching for a Cause: Participants in the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day walkathon gather for an evening group stretch before finishing their 60 miles.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
The event kicked off July 27 with opening ceremonies at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Then the walkers took off, their luggage and tents carried for them to their overnight location by some of the thousands of support people who also cooked, cleaned, set up and took down, and provided medical support and snacks along the way.
After about 26 miles of walking--it took Davis seven hours her first year, she said--the walkers arrived to pick up their bags, prepare their tents, shower, change clothes, receive treatments, eat and be entertained. Then they hit their sleeping bags to prepare for another long day of walking, beginning at 5 a.m., and another one after that, until they reached their destination and their waiting families and friends for the closing ceremonies at San Francisco's Marina Green.
Davis says crossing the finish line and finishing the race is the most moving part of the experience. But another Willow Glen resident, Debbye Harmer didn't quite know what to expect, as this was her first year participating in the walk.
This isn't the first physically challenging benefit Harmer, 51, has participated in, though. She and her daughter, Keturah, 27, both ran in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Marathon in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1999. They ran in honor of Harmer's father, who died of cancer while they were still training for the event.
Harmer says she wanted to do the walk for breast cancer to support her three daughters--Keturah, Felicia, 29, and Rebekah, 21--as well as all the other women and girls in her life and in her work as an elementary school teacher. She says she also wanted to do the walk in the hope that she would never need someone to do the walk in her honor.
"This could happen to any female," Harmer says. "I would rather do it when I don't need it, than when I do need it. I'm doing this in hopes that I never get any of this. This is preventative medicine for me."
The training for the event, though, wasn't necessarily good medicine for her. She walked many miles around Willow Glen neighborhoods in preparation for this past weekend, but last February she broke her ankle near the intersection of Hicks and Minnesota Avenues on one of her training walks and had to wear a cast until April. Once it was removed, she jumped right back into her regimen, and promptly lost two toenails after a 15-mile walk.
But two weeks before the event, she was healthy enough to complete two back-to-back days of 20 miles each--from her Willow Glen home to the Lexington Reservoir and back.
She was looking forward to meeting her husband, Robert, and possibly even her son, Chase, 22, at the finish, and expected the feeling she would have then to be even better than the feeling she had completing the marathon.
"What's different about this is that everybody will make it," she says.
Davis, too, put in many long hours training for the walk. She says she walked for between one and a half to three hours on weekdays after dropping her children Katie, 6, and Joe, 10, off at Willow Glen Elementary School. She also takes tae kwon do classes at Lincoln Avenue's West Coast Martial Arts studio. She says getting physically prepared for the event is one of the hardest things about it, but finding people to support her by training with her or donating money wasn't too difficult.
"The fundraising turned out to be the easiest thing," Davis says. "Once you get the word out, people tend to support you. People want to help."
She wants to help with the event in a different way next year, she says.
"I think next year I'm going to crew instead of walk," Harmer says. "I think the crew members work harder."
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
On Your Mark, Get Set, Register!: The Santa Clara Convention Center filled up early July 27 with volunteers for pre-registration before the three-day walk. Walkers also brought their gear to be transported.
One of this year's crew members is Patrick Lum, a chiropractor in Willow Glen who was the co-team captain of the 13-member chiropractic portion of the event's medical staff. He says he wanted to use his skills to help the walkers make it to the finish with as little pain as possible, because his mother died of uterine cancer in 1991.
"To me, cancer's cancer," Lum, 30, says. "It kills you. It doesn't matter what kind it is. It's a good cause. I don't mind volunteering my time for something like this."
Lum was living at his parents' home in Sunnyvale when his mother, Carol, was diagnosed in 1990. He helped care for her during her chemotherapy and radiation treatments, while he held down two jobs and attended De Anza College. He says that experience of watching her suffer through what was supposed to be helping her contributed to his decision to work in a more natural, alternative form of health care.
"It had a big role in me deciding I wanted to help people as much as I did," Lum says. "I saw what a lot of the drugs did to her. I wanted to find a way to help people, and I feel that I have."
Lum and his team were among the 65 medical doctors, podiatrists, nurses, and massage and physical therapists who helped care for ankle and knee injuries, lower back pain, tight muscles and dehydration, and any other health problems the walkers experienced.
"Everybody's there," Lum says of the medical tent. "The whole thing is that we all work together as one team. We have to check [the walkers] out and make sure they're okay. For all we know, 3,000 could come in in a day. It's a pretty big event."
Lum says he supports anything that fights cancer.
"The more money that we can raise is just going to increase our ability to find the cures for these things, if it's a natural way or a pharmaceutical way," he says.
Davis says that, last year, she needed some help from a nurse on the crew, and after the event she had to lie in bed for two days and couldn't wear shoes for a week. But she says she is completely supported by her husband, Gary, and her family, and the pain is definitely worth the gain.
"You're physically drained but emotionally charged," she says of finishing the walk. "It changed my way of thinking. I found out, 'Yes, I can do it.' Things that seem impossible, just don't seem impossible. You think, it's a perfect three days. You walk away wanting your life and your world to be like that."
For more information about the event, call 888.3DAY.AVON or visit www.breastcancer3day.org.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
