By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
To three young girls, Wednesday’s Redmen for the Cure Walk meant more than just seven laps around the front lawn of Bucyrus Elementary. It meant honoring an important woman in each girl’s life.
Third grader Cambria Wolff’s mom, fourth grader Kelsey Fackler’s step-mom, and fifth grader Jade Torres’ mom all have breast cancer. Decked out in pink, all three girls made sure they did their part to bring awareness to the disease as well as support those who have been affected by it.
Kelsey may have made the most physical change of the three girls in support of breast cancer awareness when she, along with her brother, shaved their heads in honor of their step-mother.
“Me and my brother, we were supporting my step-mom. She started losing her hair so we decided to shave our heads,” Kelsey, now sporting a short mop of brown hair, explained.
When she showed up at school, Kelsey said her schoolmates couldn’t believe she made such a drastic change. ’Kelsey, I can’t believe you did that’ and ‘Kelsey, you shaved your head, you look so much different’ were some of the responses she received.
Cambria and Jade said it was scary knowing that their moms had breast cancer.
“It’s scary because you don’t know if she’s going to live or not or get hurt or not,” Jade said.
Cambria said she was scared for her mom. “She’s stuck with what happened to her and she’d go to the doctor and think it was something else going on with cancer. And then they’d say no it’s something else and she’d have another problem. It was just really scary to know what was going on,” said Cambria.
Despite everything they’ve seen their moms and step-mom go through, the young girls never seemed to waver in their belief that what they were doing Wednesday was extremely important.
“I’m excited because I’ve been waiting for this since I knew about it,” Kelsey said. “We raised money and I was really excited because, for a cure, I’m excited so that nobody else will have to go through what my step-mom had to go through.”
Cambria said she tried to “go pink-out” for the day but she couldn’t find enough pink clothes. Luckily, she had a Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure T-shirt she had worn when she did a walk with her mom.
“It was a walk and it was really far,” Cambria remembered. “Me and my sister had tabs on our back and they said ‘We walk in honor of our mom.’”
Jade said she tried to raise a lot of money for the fundraiser. “This year I raised $309,” she said.
The Redmen for the Cure Walk started out as a community project for Derek French’s social studies classes three years ago. It has now become a school-wide fundraiser to benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
French, dressed in pink just like his students, stood outside of Bucyrus Elementary Wednesday and supervised as various grades took their walk around the front of the school. Music blared from speakers and students would walk or run by, pink ribbons tied to their wrists or foreheads.
“This is the third year for our event,” French explained. “We’ve raised in the past three years over $5,300 for the foundation.”
“The fifth graders were involved the first year we ever did it,” French said. “Mrs. Green (a Bucyrus third grade teacher) is a breast cancer survivor. We started out doing the walk as a community service project and that year they knew Mrs. Green was a breast cancer survivor so we decided to hold the walk in her honor. Within the next year, we opened up to the whole school.”
“It’s been hype all week and Mr. Roll, our principal has been making announcements all week and making everybody excited about it, too,” said French.
“I just think it’s amazing that they would give them time to donate to such a good cause,” third grade teacher and breast cancer survivor Cathy Green said. “They get into it a little more each year.”
In preparation for the event, Green talked to her class about why they were doing such an event. Though Green thought it was sad that students have to deal with such issues, she believed that they understood the importance of it.
“It touches their lives,” she said.
Teachers signed up their classes for 40-minute intervals to walk the make-shift track of the school’s front lawn. Seven laps around roughly equaled one mile. Preschool students up through fifth grade participated in the event.
Students also collected donations and gathered sponsors and pledges. Additional funds were raised through the school’s T-shirt sale.
A photo gallery of the Redmen for the Cure Walk can be found on the Photos page of this website.