Walking for a cure for cancer

Donna Thibodeau looks over the signatures on the pink T-shirts she has collected during her fundraising efforts. (Baker City Herald/Lisa Britton)

“It’s all about the pink, baby,” she says with a grin.

Thibodeau is promoting the pink to spread awareness of the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure 60-mile walk she will complete July 23, 24 and 25 in Boston.

She will log 20 miles each day and sleep in a pink tent at night (which she will share with Deby Kidney, sister to Mary Collard of Baker City, who is a breast cancer survivor).

Why that distance?

“Because it’s not normal,” she says. “Who’s going to walk 20 miles a day?”

She had to raise $2,300 to participate. Since March she has received $2,500 through bake sales, a yard sale, selling photographs, selling pink “Find a Cure” lanyards, and busing tables at The Chamealeon restaurant during the Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally.

She’s raising money under the name “Kicking Asphalt for the Cure,” and wore a shirt with that message when she was at The Chamealeon.

Also, Marilyn Shollenberger and her band Salt Lick #39 played at The Chamealeon that night to support Thibodeau.

She also can’t say enough of the support from her fellow employees at Baker County. She works in the planning department, and decorated her desk in pink.

“The people at the county have been overwhelmingly supportive,” she says.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation is specific to breast cancer, and funds research and programs related to the disease.

Thibodeau doesn’t have breast cancer in her family, but she’s lost one uncle to brain cancer and has another uncle fighting bone cancer. She also has friends who have battled breast cancer.

She’s thought about doing this 60-mile walk for the past 15 years, and this March she finally decided to do it — with help from an inspirational sign she keeps in her office that reads “Destined to be an old woman with no regrets.”

When she looked at the Komen Web site this spring, she thought of that saying and clicked the button to participate.

She worried, at first, if she could raise $2,300.

But then she covered her office in pink, sent out letters (not e-mails, she emphasizes) and started baking.

And the money started coming.

“I’m overwhelmed at the support from this town,” she says.

Oh, and she also found time to train.

“I’m trying to raise money, do fundraisers, work full-time and have a life,” she says.

She walks whenever she can. Last week, for instance, she was supposed to log 18 miles on Saturday and 15 miles on Sunday

The Komen organization provided the training program, as well as other tips for surviving the walk, such as carrying water bottles, an I.D., extra socks, fingernail clippers and moleskin for blisters.

And she’s supposed to carry all that when she trains.

“I have this huge black fanny pack,” she laughs.

She’s more comfortable wearing a backpack, but that would cover up the special shirts she plans to wear.

Blue Mountain Design Works donated three pink T-shirts, which Thibodeau has encouraged everyone to sign. Some messages are in memory of cancer victims, and others are words of encouragement for Thibodeau.

She also had eight inches of her hair cut off so her locks wouldn’t hide the heart-felt signatures.

“How can I cover this up?” she says, running her hand over the messages.

She knows this walk won’t be easy.

“I know it’s going to be tough, but it’s so worth it,” she says. “God didn’t give me the gift of being a doctor or scientist, but he gave me the gift of gab and the gift of walking.”

She plans to keep raising money until she leaves for Boston.

“What if the three thousand I raise finds the cure? What if this money saves someone’s life?” she says. “It’s all about finding the cure and helping someone else. I love to give, I love to help.”

Donations to support Thibodeau can be made by calling her at 541-403-2378 or online: www.the3day.org/goto/donnalynn.