Breast Cancer Walk pinks out LaFayette
BY KADIE TAYLOR
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
LAFAYETTE — Hope Heals Within is holding its 9th annual Breast Cancer Walk on Oct. 18, registration begins at 8:30 a.m. and the walk begins at 9 a.m. near the LaFayette Courthouse.
“Hope Heals Within is a support group that I started 10 years ago and we have nine years with the Breast Cancer Walk,” said Hope Heals Within Founder, Jeanette Jones. “Next year, we are looking forward to our 10th year. I started this, I’m a Breast Cancer survivor, and it’s been 13 years ago. I just know how hard it was for me, so I just needed someone to talk to, so I said, ‘Why not start a support group?’ And so out of the Hope Heals Within, we started the Breast Cancer Walk.”
The registration fee to walk is $10 and t-shirts are also available for purchase. Jones said everyone should wear pink during the walk.
“We do have T-shirts; small through extra large are $20 and anything [XXL] and up is $22,” she said. “I’m thinking [the walk] is like a mile. We start in front of the courthouse, and we go down toward the football field, like the halfway house, then we turn around at the stop sign and come back up farmers and merchant side.”
Jones said she continues to provide a space for people to meet and confide in others who are battling cancer or have survived cancer, she said the group is growing but she wants to recognize and remember that Hope Heals Within has lost three members to cancer.
“It’s growing every day because cancer has touched so many people,” she said. “If it hasn’t touched you, it touched somebody in your family. So it’s growing throughout our community, and I want it to grow, because I want everybody to know it’s not about me as the founder, it’s not about me. We are able to reach out and give back to Spencer Cancer Center in Opelika, and we help so many people in our community.”
As she continues to navigate her own experience as a cancer survivor, Jones looks to encourage others who are struggling in their fight.
“Our motto is, ‘never giving up hope, never losing hope,’” she said. “It’s tough, but when you got your faith, and that’s what I rely on, my faith in God, and faith in Him, because in everything that I go through, I put Him first. So it’s just a place where they can be there for other people, because we are supporting the fighters, admiring the survivors and honoring the taken, and we never give up hope. So this is a place where you could just come and release, and we need it.”
As she sees her community gather together every year for the Breast Cancer Walk, Jones said tears come to her eyes.
“It’s really not about the walk,” she said. “It’s about the fighters and the survivors and what they have been through during their journey. We take this walk for them every year. Every year, I am so full and so teary-eyed just to see what people have been going through. And I look back and say, I made it. 13 years ago, I didn’t see myself here, but it’s been a journey. Each year, I meet somebody different that’s going through this journey, and then when I hear of somebody who’s been here with us and lost the battle, oh, my God. As I look around every year, I see how many people we have touched, and it just makes me bubbly all over.”
Following the walk, there will be a balloon release to honor those who are battling cancer or have survived cancer, of all types.
“It’s about bringing awareness to breast cancer,” Jones said. “But we recognize all cancer. We have a balloon release to recognize all types of cancer. We do all colors, the different color balloons. And this year, that’s what our shirt is about. It’s about how we fight in all colors.”
For more information, contact Jones at 334-497-2114.
