The 32-year-old Jimmy Fund Walk went virtual over the weekend, following in the footsteps of the Boston Marathon, whose course it traditionally shares.
“Cancer doesn’t stop during the pandemic,” said director Zack Blackburn.
The annual walk, which has raised money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute since the late 1980s, took place Sunday, scattered across trails, sidewalks, and home treadmills around the country, according to Blackburn.
In addition to all 50 states, there are even walkers in Australia raising money for the institute, he said.
“Our hope is that people understand that regardless of where they are in country or Massachusetts, everyone can make an impact in the lives of cancer patients and can still do their part,” Blackburn said in a phone interview Sunday after completing a 10k walk.
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But like most organizations, the Jimmy Fund Walk has had to scale back expectations, he said. Compared with 8,000 to 9,000 walkers raising as much as $9 million in a normal year, the event was on track to raise about $6 million with just shy of 6,400 walkers, Blackburn said.
Instead of walking amid crowds of fellow fund-raisers and cancer survivors, Rachel Haddad, 36, did her 5k Sunday alone in Seekonk. She spent the time thinking over what she needed to do for her new home instead of comparing treatments and inspiring other walkers with her story of surviving cancer.
“It’s not the same [as] seeing all the people . . . but I think everyone is experiencing the very same thing and hopefully thinking positive that we’ll be walking in Boston next year,” said Haddad, who was was treated at Dana-Farber for a rare form of lymphoma about a decade ago.
Miles away, Matthew Nazarenko, 35, was in Lunenburg walking around a lake to raise money for his 6-year-old daughter, Anna, who is being treated at the facility for a rare condition with no known cure.
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“It’s more difficult to fund-raise” this year, he said in a phone interview, his daughter by his side. Still, that won’t detract from an outing meant to celebrate the girl.
“For her today, it’s really about having fun,” he said. "...More smiles, that’s really the goal today.”
While the crowds of walkers have scattered far afield of the traditional route, it’s still possible to stumble upon some of the event’s traditional sights.
Like Doug Fox, 49, and his band of pink armor-clad marchers, who spent most of the day Saturday walking from Needham, where he lives, to Boston.
“In suburbs, people look at you like you’re crazy,” he said with a laugh, remembering the five of them trudging along with their plastic gear, no longer benefiting from the context of the traditional event to explain their garb.
Plus there are the challenges added by having fewer public restrooms open due to the pandemic, which the group solved by stopping for drinks and appetizers at a bar every three miles.
But the pandemic would not stop them, he said. “The barbarians marched on Rome in the middle of the Black Death, so there’s a precedent for this,” he reasoned with another laugh.
His voice grew more serious as he thought about the reason why he walks each year. Both Fox and his wife were treated at Dana-Farber for cancer, and a recent trip to the facility for a cancer screening reminded him of his first diagnosis about five years ago, he said.
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Fox said he was thinking of all those people who during the pandemic avoided going to the doctor and will now have cancer symptoms detected even later — that will have their lives upended by the disease.
“It brought me back to when I went there and got the bad news," he said, "and that’s why we walk.”
Lucas Phillips can be reached at lucas.phillips@globe.com.
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Jimmy Fund walkers swap marathon course for other paths - The Boston Globe
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