I thought out-of-towners and everyone who couldn't make it might like to hear about Saturday's ovarian cancer walk in Chicago...
After a miserable winter and a nonexistent spring (seemingly always 45 and overcast), Saturday was a beautiful day here: 60 and sunny. What a welcome change! I piled the kids, two of Fi's friends, and Sheila into the car and left Evanston, getting to Lincoln Park at 9am. As we were headed to the restaurant rendezvous we met up with the group leaving there, so we turned around and all headed over into the park.
The walk had about 2,000 participants last year, and I'm guessing it was similar this year. Team Rachel was about 50 people - friends, neighbors, relatives, colleagues of Rachel's, teachers from St. A's, etc.
The t-shirts were interesting. Registering got you the typical event t-shirt: white, with an NOCC design on the front, and lots of sponsor logos on the back, just like at a 10K run. This is what most people wore. Ovarian cancer survivors were given special teal shirts, and led the start of the walk. (There seemed to be so few of them, and they weren't a healthy-looking bunch.) Our group all wore our Team Rachel shirts, and some other teams had their own custom designs ("In Memory Of...", etc.) Some people carried signs as well. There were a lot of personal stories represented.
Beforehand I had found the registration website at active.com a little wonky, but the event itself seemed pretty well run: Plenty of volunteers, adequate information and supplies, and a well-marked course. Everyone seemed to know what to do and where to go, and we started off at 10am.
Team Rachel got split up pretty quickly, as it's hard to get 50 people to stick together, especially when half of them are kids. Clusters of 5-10 of us were spread throughout the long parade, walking and chatting at a leisurely pace. The course went south from Belmont to Fullerton, back up to Diversey and around Diversey Harbor to Fullerton again, under Lake Shore Drive to the lakefront, up to Belmont, and back over to the event site. It was every bit of 3 miles, and took a little over an hour to do.
The kids seemed to have a lot of fun, enjoying the spring outing with their friends and cousins. Elvis, too, as he never met an adventure he didn't like. Along the way I got to do a second good deed for the day with a few of the guys, as we helped someone push her stalled car off of Lake Shore Drive.
About 30 of us met afterwards at the Firehouse Grill in Evanston for lunch, which was a loud, boisterous, upbeat affair, kids running every-which-way.
I was exhausted when I got home. I'm sure some of it was from the walking, the sun, and the sunburn I picked up. I think a fair amount was mental and emotional, though: being re-immersed in the subject of ovarian cancer for those several hours, plus the weeks leading up to the event. A mixture of useless thoughts ("What could we have done differently 9 months ago?") with useful ones ("What can we do now?"). I'm already thinking about next year's walk.
Together Team Rachel raised over $5,000 for ovarian cancer education and awareness. Thanks, again, to everyone who took part, and to everyone who made a donation for this very worthy cause. It means so much.
Pat
"Be an angel to someone else whenever you can, as a way of thanking God for the help your angel has given you." -- Eileen Elias Freeman
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3 comments:
Pat
I really wanted to be there with Team Rachel for the walk. You were all on my mind that day!
Fran
I, too, wanted so much to participate in the walk. My thoughts were with all of you. Its great to read that Team Rachel raised a significant amount of money. Next year, I'll be there for sure.
Rosanne
I was so glad my daughter was able to participate in the walk (since I was out of town). It sounds like an extremely emotional, interesting, and wonderful day. Congratulations on the money (and awareness) raised. And thanks for keeping up the posts - we really look forward to reading them. All the best,
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