Cancer walks at a crossroads

Title: Cancer walks at a crossroads

Author: Charles Storch

Publication: Chicago Tribune

Publication Date: August 19, 2003

 

When it comes to walks or races to raise funds for breast cancer programs and research, toes sometimes get stepped on.

Amid growing criticism of the costs and corporate marketing associated with these events, now there is tension about the maneuvering of two large foundations behind the most ambitious of the walks.

In 1998, the Avon Foundation began backing three-day, 60-mile walks, which made the 5K races of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation look like little girls’ play. But in spring 2002, Avon split with the controversial producer of those popular events and said it was lopping a day and 20 miles off a new series of walks. That gave Komen an opening to set Avon back on its heels.

This May, Dallas-based Komen and another public charity, the suburban Philadelphia-based National Philanthropic Trust, said they were teaming for three walks this year, each three days in duration. All would be held this November in California — including in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where two of the revamped Avon Walks for Breast Cancer would be held in the summer.

Then on Aug. 5, Komen and the trust presented a list of 10 cities for its 2004 series of Breast Cancer 3-Days. The list included all six cities, including Chicago, on Avon’s 2004 schedule, which had been announced two weeks prior. In Chicago next year, the Avon walk is scheduled for June 5-6 and the Komen and trust’s 3-Day for Aug. 27-29.

“We certainly wish everyone well in successful fundraising and finding an end to breast cancer,” said Susan Arnot Heaney, director of the Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Crusade in New York. “We do, however, feel it is a little unfortunate that the cities are so similar in their list.”

Komen and trust officials said that the overlap was coincidental and that they will try to avoid scheduling conflicts in the future. Like Heaney, they insist they are not competing for money or influence in the field of breast cancer care. And they hope to augment, not split, the pot of donations — filled, too, by innumerable other outings sponsored by other breast cancer charities.

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