Pink and hugs, tears, laughter and names.
The Remembrance Run 2006 drew 233 participants who walked or ran either one mile or 5K to raise money for the Women's Cancer Fund. Held Saturday morning at the Timber Ridge Campground, the event also featured a Breast Health Fair where 17 exhibitors provided information on a range of topics relating to women's health and cancer issues.
With "In Honor Of" or "In Memory Of" placards pinned to their backs — naming mothers, aunts, grandmothers or friends — participants joined together to help women battling cancer.
"My sister-in-law was a very special lady," said a tearful Kathy Whalen of Kay Whalen, who recently died of brain cancer.
Whalen and a group of close friends have participated in the Remembrance Run every year since it began about 13 years ago. Even though she lived downstate, they always honored Kay Whalen, who was there in spirit if not in body because each friend wrote her name on their card. This year, the two-time cancer survivor of 17 years died and her absence was felt even more keenly.
"She just opened her house to everybody, she had a big heart and she was a very strong lady," said Kathy Whalen, who has the first year's Remembrance Run T-shirt quilted into a hanging. "We've been walking for her ever since we started this."
Kathleen Hayes, herself a cancer survivor of 11 years and a friend of Kathy Whalen's, believes there is something special about the Remembrance Run. With a list of five names on her back — including a triumphant ME! — Hayes cherishes the annual gathering with friends to help others. Beyond the laughter and sharing and ice cream is a determination to make a difference for women.
"I do a lot of the cancer events, like the Relay for Life, but this one is special because it tugs at your heartstrings," she noted, adding that everybody knows somebody who has been affected by the disease.
The Remembrance Run began as a great idea dreamed up by a group of women, all friends and members of the Traverse City Track Club, celebrating New Year's Eve together. They wanted to organize an event for women to benefit women. One thing led to another, with idea building on idea, and soon the Remembrance Run was born.
Now a club institution, many of the two dozen male volunteers — who help with everything from parking to handing out flowers at the finish line — own the tuxedo jackets and bow ties they don every year.
"Just to be able to help out, it's a great cause and a great event," said Dave Taylor, president of the club and a volunteer for 12 years.
The money raised benefits the Women's Cancer Fund, another outgrowth of that long-ago New Year's Eve gathering. That one meeting also spawned the annual From Women's Hands art show.
The Women's Cancer Fund disperses money to local women being treated for cancer who need financial help with everything from wigs or a prosthesis to a heating bill or house payment.
"There's always those things, costs, that come up when you're undergoing this huge crisis," said Michelle Witkop, a Nurse Practitioner in palliative care at Munson Medical Center. "It helps women with non-medical expenses, women who fall through the cracks."
The founders have running the Remembrance Run down to a science after all these years and no longer even have meetings to plan it.
"Everybody knows their job and they just do it, we basically just make a few phone calls and it's done," noted Witkop. "I think women are motivated, that energy just recreates itself."