After recording a video sharing my “Favorite 3-Day Moment” with John of 60Miles, I started reflecting on more favorite memories. Here’s another favorite memory, this one from crewing in 2005.
In 2005, Matt and I were crewing the Boston 3Day. The weather was icky: it was cool and rainy and windy. By the end of the day, our pants were stuck to our skin and our throats were hoarse from cheering and breathing in the raw New England air all day. Pouring water and Gatorade all day in the dreary grey day didn’t dampen the spirits in our Pit Stop and we were still laughing as we rode our van back into camp. Once back in camp, we were met by chaos as the announcement had been made that Tent City was being replaced with indoor housing. Our home for the night was an old army base, and walkers were being housed in one building and crew in another. The big dining tent and the shower trucks were set up near the walker’s building, across the compound from where crew were being housed. It took a while to get our bearings. Once we figured out where we needed to be, it was just another 3-Day adventure.
We found our gear and showered and explored the halls of our camp-for-the-night. Finally, we were settling down to our corner of the gymnasium before going to get dinner. It was about 7:30 and I was really starting to feel effects of being on the go for more than 14 hours. I stretched out on the sleeping bag for a moment and looked over to see another woman nearby. I smiled and said hello. She was hunkered down into her sleeping bag. She looked tiny and worn down. I asked her what crew she was on and she told us that she was actually a walker, but was staying in the crew building to be with her partner, but he was still working. She was cold and exhausted and said she needed to rest before she could even think about walking across the camp to get dinner. I looked over at Matt and knew we were sharing the same thought. I smiled broadly and told her to close her eyes and rest and that I was sure she’d feel better soon.
Matt and I walked across camp, collected everything we needed, and brought her a big tray of hot dinner that she could eat right there. She was so thankful for her dinner in bed that she kept calling us her angels. We didn’t know then that she was a survivor. We didn’t know then that she had just barely finished chemo treatment. We didn’t know then that she wasn’t going to see her partner for another 4 hours as his crew was called into overtime hours. We didn’t know then that she was probably close enough to dehydration that the walk to the dining tent would have knocked her out.
All we knew then was that she was more tired than we were and that we could give her what she needed. We sat with her while she ate and then said goodnight as we finally made our way to the tent for our own supper. My own dinner tasted especially good that night; and the sleep I had that night on the floor of that gym was particularly restful. People say that helping others is it’s own reward. Crewing the 3-Day is certainly a tribute to that concept. But bringing dinner to the walker that night went far beyond walker and crew; and it had deeper meaning than just how we treat one another during the 3-Day.
It all comes down to this: if you can do something for someone else, is there really ever any reason not to?
Showing posts with label komen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label komen. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Every Minute Counts
Last night, I decided it was time to write a new fundraising letter. Each year, I write a few different letters, depending on how I’m approaching our fundraising. It’s important to change it up, and after 10 years, that sometimes gets difficult. After all, how many different ways are there to say, “Please help”?
For inspiration for my new letter, I decided to review the facts sheet that the Komen folks sent to me when I agreed to be an “online ambassador”. One fact I hadn’t seen before reached out and hit me in the face.
>> A person dies from breast cancer every 68 seconds. <<
68 seconds?! Every minute another person dies from breast cancer.
In the ten minutes that it took to brew my coffee this morning, someone’s daughter died. A young man lost his only sister. A husband held his dying partner’s hand. An older woman had to tell her granddaughter that mommy wasn’t coming home. A woman said goodbye to her brother forever. A man died quietly, ashamed of his body. A single mother died wondering who would care for her children. A woman with no family died alone in a sterile hospital room. A family gathered around their matriarch to say goodbye. Somebody’s best friend died. All that loss while I waited for my coffee.
This litany of loss could be devastatingly depressing. But it doesn’t have to be. Instead, I choose to use it to inspire me to be stronger in my training and more intentional in my fundraising. Every minute that I am walking in The 3Day Walk, I am saving lives and supporting people who are living with breast cancer. By raising money with my footsteps, my minutes are counting in this battle. I am waging war by using my feet, and engaging the hearts – and wallets – of my family and friends.
Walking at full speed, it would take me about 950 minutes to walk 60 miles. The 60 miles of The 3Day will actually take a lot longer than that because I need to stop and stretch and eat snacks and visit those beautiful porta-potties. So, it will take me around 1500 minutes of walking. And in those 1500 minutes, all across the world, 1500 more people will die from breast cancer. But in those same 1500 minutes, the money that my feet helped to raise will help to change the face of the disease.
I have raised at least $3000 each of the years that I have walked, so each minute that I walk is worth two more dollars towards the cause. Two dollars might not sound like much but those dollars really do add up. Each minute that I walk, I will be walking with thousands of other people, so my dollars are matched by all those other dollars.
Just last year alone, our minutes were part of $93 million in grants offered to 1900 community organizations. In 2009, our minutes helped 3.9 million people to receive breast cancer education materials. Our minutes helped more than 260,000 women to receive a potentially life-saving mammogram. Our minutes helped approximately 5,000 people to be diagnosed with breast cancer who otherwise may not have been diagnosed, and our minutes helped more than 100,000 women to benefit from treatment assistance.
My minutes, multiplied by the thousands of 3Day Walkers and Crew in fifteen cities this year, will lead the fight to change the statistics and transform the litany of loss to a celebration of hope.
Another person dies from breast cancer every minute? That may be true, but it is also true that every minute, there are also thousands of us all across the world, walking towards a different future. We all get to decide which minutes of our lives to make count. Make your minutes count.
For inspiration for my new letter, I decided to review the facts sheet that the Komen folks sent to me when I agreed to be an “online ambassador”. One fact I hadn’t seen before reached out and hit me in the face.
>> A person dies from breast cancer every 68 seconds. <<
68 seconds?! Every minute another person dies from breast cancer.
In the ten minutes that it took to brew my coffee this morning, someone’s daughter died. A young man lost his only sister. A husband held his dying partner’s hand. An older woman had to tell her granddaughter that mommy wasn’t coming home. A woman said goodbye to her brother forever. A man died quietly, ashamed of his body. A single mother died wondering who would care for her children. A woman with no family died alone in a sterile hospital room. A family gathered around their matriarch to say goodbye. Somebody’s best friend died. All that loss while I waited for my coffee.
This litany of loss could be devastatingly depressing. But it doesn’t have to be. Instead, I choose to use it to inspire me to be stronger in my training and more intentional in my fundraising. Every minute that I am walking in The 3Day Walk, I am saving lives and supporting people who are living with breast cancer. By raising money with my footsteps, my minutes are counting in this battle. I am waging war by using my feet, and engaging the hearts – and wallets – of my family and friends.
Walking at full speed, it would take me about 950 minutes to walk 60 miles. The 60 miles of The 3Day will actually take a lot longer than that because I need to stop and stretch and eat snacks and visit those beautiful porta-potties. So, it will take me around 1500 minutes of walking. And in those 1500 minutes, all across the world, 1500 more people will die from breast cancer. But in those same 1500 minutes, the money that my feet helped to raise will help to change the face of the disease.
I have raised at least $3000 each of the years that I have walked, so each minute that I walk is worth two more dollars towards the cause. Two dollars might not sound like much but those dollars really do add up. Each minute that I walk, I will be walking with thousands of other people, so my dollars are matched by all those other dollars.
Just last year alone, our minutes were part of $93 million in grants offered to 1900 community organizations. In 2009, our minutes helped 3.9 million people to receive breast cancer education materials. Our minutes helped more than 260,000 women to receive a potentially life-saving mammogram. Our minutes helped approximately 5,000 people to be diagnosed with breast cancer who otherwise may not have been diagnosed, and our minutes helped more than 100,000 women to benefit from treatment assistance.
My minutes, multiplied by the thousands of 3Day Walkers and Crew in fifteen cities this year, will lead the fight to change the statistics and transform the litany of loss to a celebration of hope.
Another person dies from breast cancer every minute? That may be true, but it is also true that every minute, there are also thousands of us all across the world, walking towards a different future. We all get to decide which minutes of our lives to make count. Make your minutes count.
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