Columbia's First Annual Free to Breathe® Lung Cancer Awareness Walk
September 17, 2009
Celebrate Lung Cancer Awareness Month this November and Support the National Lung Cancer Partnership
COLUMBIA, SC – September 16, 2009 – South Carolina’s state motto proclaims: Dum, Spiro, Spero…While I Breathe, I Hope. Celebrate hope and join lung cancer survivors, family, friends, and advocates at the first ever Free to Breathe® 5K Lung Cancer Awareness Walk on Saturday, November 21, 2009 at the West Columbia Riverwalk and Amphitheater.
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish I could do to lung cancer what it did to my beloved mother, stated event organizer, Angie Bankhead Derrick. I truly don’t think South Carolinians realize that lung cancer is the number one cancer killer and more importantly that over 60% of new cases are never smokers or former smokers, many of whom quit decades ago, said Derrick. The American Cancer Society’s Cancer Facts and Figures 2009 reveals that 3,680 South Carolinians will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year and 2,880 citizens will die.
The Free to Breathe ® event series of the National Lung Cancer Partnership unites people who are passionate about raising public awareness and raising much needed funding to fight lung cancer. The National Lung Cancer Partnership is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization, originally formed in 2001, and officially incorporated in 2003. Their mission is to decrease deaths due to lung cancer, and help patients live longer and better, through research, awareness, and advocacy.
To register, volunteer, donate or sponsor the first annual Free to Breathe® 5K Lung Cancer Awareness Walk visit www.FreetoBreathe.org or www.NationalLungCancerPartnership.org
Registration online is $15, $18 mail -in, and then $20 on the day of the event beginning at 8:30am. The walk will begin at 10:00am with speakers, entertainment, a health expo, kids’ activities, and a silent auction.
