Making Strides Against Breast Cancer
By Julia Lavelle
Senior Staff Writer
Students will be participating in “Making Strides,” a walk for breast cancer that will take place in Central Park on Sunday, October 18th.
The event is run by the American Cancer Society. The walk has been held every year since 1993 in NYC’s Central Park in late October, as October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. All money raised goes to research for a cure. Mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, spouses, friends and coworkers come together with a common goal – to help save lives. Last year alone, dedicated supporters raised more than $60 million nationwide to help the American Cancer Society continue to fight breast cancer and offer hope to people facing the disease.
For the past ten years, Kappa Delta Pi has organized a team of MC students and staff to participate in the walk. Kappa Delta Pi is an international education honor society that believes in the importance of helping the community in order to better themselves as future educators. Making Strides is just one event that the society members dedicate their time and effort towards to help the community.
The team is open to all of the MC community. This year the MC Kappa Delta Pi team has 124 registered walkers, and most are not even education majors!
President Kate Murphy said, “This is very exciting for us because we are trying to foster community within Manhattan College. The fact that so many people who are not even education majors have expressed interest in walking with us makes us feel very encouraged and excited about the walk.”
Murphy and the other members of the honor society have been registering more people everyday. They invite all students and faculty at MC to join them, as well as friends and family who do not attend our institution. Many students have been stepping up to get involved and have registered to walk later this month. The team hopes more faculty and administrators will join them for a fun and inspiring Sunday afternoon.
Kappa Delta Pi has been doing their own fundraising on top of registering participants and leading the team. They have had bake sales around campus and have been encouraging people to donate to fight for a cure. Murphy explained that the team started with a fundraising goal of $3,000 but that they have already raised over $4,500. The team is now striving to raise $5,000 before the walk on Oct. 18 and believes they may even be able to surpass that!
All 124 members are eager to do their part and cannot wait for the walk. Senior Caralyn Hickey is a Kappa Delta Pi member and walked last year. She urges others to join. “It’s a great way to get involved and raise awareness for a good cause.” Hickey recruited her lacrosse team to walk last year and the girls will be joining the ranks again on the 18th.
Murphy expressed her anticipation for the walk. “I am extremely excited by the progress Manhattan College and the Kappa Delta Pi team has made in the fight against breast cancer. Everyone in Kappa Delta Pi has stepped up and helped out so much, which shows how much they truly care about what we are doing. Manhattan College as a community has shocked us with its incredible response to this cause. Thank you everyone! Please register to walk with us and please donate.”
Sign up with the MC team today and do your part to help fight cancer. The team will be registering people right up until Oct. 17, the day before the walk! It’s really easy to sign-up.
Go to http://makingstrides.acsevents.org. Scroll down, click on New York Making Strides – Central Park location and click on Join a Team. Type in Kappa Delta Pi: Mu Sigma and scroll down until you can click on the team name. Finally, choose Join Our Team, fill out the boxes and follow the prompts.
If you are not available to walk you can still donate to the MC team by going to http://makingstrides.acsevents.org and donating to Kappa Delta Pi: Mu Sigma.
Support breast cancer awareness and help find a cure. Join the walk to Make Strides as the day promises to be an emotional, fulfilling and fun experience for all who take part.
Hope everyone either participates or donates. Making Strides events are very important. And as this is NBCAM, thought I’d pass along an easy way to help raise awareness: check out these 30 sec cancer and breast cancer related videos — http://www.ahamoment.com/pg/voting?moment=pmbbmea — and click to vote for one or all. The top vote getters in the contest will be aha moment TV commercials next year. And more media exposure for the cause would be a very good thing.
Thx,
jack@ahamoment.com