Story updated as donations total rises
Survivors, supporters, donors, grievers and volunteers walked three miles through the St. Cloud State campus Oct. 15 in a demonstration of support for breast cancer research and programs.
At publication time, the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of Central Minnesota walk had raised more than $90,000 for the American Cancer Society. That total is expected to rise as more donations are tallied.
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In 2015, local walkers and donors raised $96,000. This year’s goal is $100,000.
Among the many participating St. Cloud State folk were Ashish Vaidya, interim president, and St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis ’89. Among the walk-support volunteers were students from Professor Teresa Heck’s HLTH 425 Community Health Event Planning class.
This year’s honored survivor was Margaret Potter, daughter of the late President Earl H. Potter III. A data scientist in Minneapolis, she was featured in an Oct. 17 KSTP TV report.
This is the eighth year Central Minnesotans have walked to fund #MoreBirthdays. According to Dee Rengel, a walk organizer, 71 survivors, representing 571 years of survival, participated in Saturday”s walk.
The walk is a celebration of survival and an expression of shared determination that this will be breast cancer’s last century. Since 1993, more than 12 million walkers across the United States have raised more than $750 million to help fight breast cancer through Making Strides events.
In 2015 alone, 1.4 million walkers across the country raised more than $60 million to help finish the fight against breast cancer.
The society’s 2015 breast cancer estimates: 231,840 new cases of invasive breast cancer and 40,290 deaths.
View the Potter interview with KSTP TV:
