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Ann Hooper walked for her friend Lynn Kennelly, who died of breast cancer on Sept. 21. Mary Lowery walked as a proud 14-year survivor of the disease. Annaliese Rosenthal, a college senior, walked for her friends' future health, and her own.
Together, they and roughly 14,000 other participants in Saturday morning's Susan G. Komen Charlotte Race for the Cure brought a riot of pink and a fighting spirit to uptown Charlotte.
The annual walk and run raised $1.3 million for breast cancer research and support. That's about $100,000 less than last year at this time, but left Komen Charlotte pleased considering the economy, board member Park Williams said.
Young and old, men and women, the newly diagnosed and a 54-year survivor, they came wearing pink capes, cowboy hats, hijabs, feather boas, stuffed flamingoes, wigs, T-shirts and sweat suits. A group of burly men sported pink tutus. Pink sheets of paper pinned to their backs listed the people they walked for: "My wife," "my daughter," "my sister," "Nana," "Me!"
"So many of us know people (affected)," said Rosenthal, 22, who attended with about 50 fellow members of Davidson College's Connor House. "One in eight of us will get it in our lifetime."
Many on her team, Circle Up - which Hooper captained - wore the name "Lynn Kennelly." Cynthia Lucas of Charlotte, who used to run and bike with Kennelly, wrote her friend's name on her arms and legs. Others affixed lyrics to their clothing from Diana Ross' "Remember Me," one of Kennelly's favorite songs. "Remember me as a big balloon, at a carnival that ended all too soon," they read.
Led by drum-beating members of a youth band from the Greenville neighborhood, north of uptown, the team entered the procession waving a flag and carrying a balloon arch, with one white balloon, in Kennelly's memory.
"It was only a few weeks ago she was thinking, 'I don't think I can walk that race this year,' but thinking about how to get there," Hooper said. "She just lost that fight a little too soon, in many regards ... I think her energy will be all around us."
The team formed in 1999 to support Charlotte resident Kennelly and another friend, Bryn Anderson, who were diagnosed with breast cancer within a month of each other that year. The group has been in every Charlotte Race for the Cure since; with Anderson and Kennelly running - not walking - whenever possible. Anderson, 62, beat the disease in 1999 and ran in Saturday's noncompetitive 5K race. Kennelly's case recurred; she was 50 when she died.
With 350-plus members this year, including 15 breast cancer survivors, Circle Up was the largest team in the friends and family category. It also raised the most money among that group: Nearly $100,000 this year alone, helped by a generous donation from Kennelly.
Kennelly friend Vikki Hunley, 52, a Charlotte advertising agency owner, has been with the team since its inception. Her mother died of breast cancer 26 years ago, and the disease claimed one of her aunts. Her sister was diagnosed at 28.
"Twenty-six years ago, we didn't talk about breast cancer," Hunley said. "There were no 'Circle Ups.' This group has been such a healing experience for me."
Survivor Lowery, 61, of Charlotte, a retired Bank of America vice president, came with her daughter, grandchildren and a team from her church, Greenville Memorial AME Zion.
Carolina Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams, who has lost three aunts to the disease and whose mother is a survivor, led a 550-strong contingent called Williams Warriors.
And at the corner of Mint and Stonewall streets, Jen Pagani, 39, dashed into the flow of people for her third annual race, surrounded by friends, family and neighbors sporting blue T-shirts reading "Go Jen Go." A former personal trainer and mother of two, she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 37, as she was nursing her three-month-old son. The Komen organization, she said, helped her connect with other women with similar stories and hopes.
Pagani is undergoing chemotherapy and recently established a foundation to help breast cancer sufferers that lack support networks and financial resources. This year, she said, her team raised more than $25,000. Fundraising for all teams continues through the end of the month.
"Being involved in this has galvanized my sense of good in people and my faith in God and my fellow Charlotteans," she said. "It's also been an opportunity for us to give back. That's what we're trying to do."
To learn more or donate, visit www.komencharlotte.org.
