Hikers Climb Sugarloaf to Support Breast Cancer Fund

When it comes to fundraising efforts for breast cancer causes, it’s the passion, the sisterhood, the tireless efforts and the pink tidal wave that seems to push millions of volunteers into action.

There’s the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, which has raised about $400 million and has about seven million walkers in its events.

Then there’s the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF), which was founded by Janelle Hail 30 years ago. Diagnosed with breast cancer in her early 30s, Hail had a mastectomy at 34. There was not nearly as much information available then.

“Every word beyond, ‘You have breast cancer,’ was a blur,” she said.

Hail had three young sons, and she was terrified.

She later fulfilled her dream of helping others — in millions of ways. Donations to the NBCF’s Pink Ribbon Challenge go to programs that benefit women: namely free mammograms at hospitals, clinics, missions and mobile clinics.

But amid this sea of pink is a tidal pool of purple — volunteers, survivors, and dedicated board members and staff who have made it their mission to identify and eliminate the environmental and other preventable causes of breast cancer.

The San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Fund is, according to board member Donna Westmoreland, focused on prevention and the color purple — not on pink and a cure.

"The 1 in 8 odds are kind of accepted," Westmoreland said, citing the U.S. statistic that about 1 in 8 women will develop invasive breast cancer during their lifetime. "We don't accept 1 in 8 — ourselves, our daughters and granddaughters should be able to live in a world where the chances are lower than that."

Westmoreland, a Bethesda native and resident, said the environmental causes of cancer are significant, adding that 80,000 chemicals currently on the market didn't have to undergo any kind of testing. The organization's campaign against the use of bisphenol A (BPA) — an estrogenic chemical linked in lab studies to increased breast cancer risk — in canned foods and food packaging is just one example of its mission to translate the latest scientific findings into public education and advocacy.

After two of Westmoreland's friends were diagnosed with breast cancer within months of each other, she organized a fundraising event fittingly named Beyond the Pink – A Hike to Prevent Breast Cancer. Thirty hikers participated the first year, raising $8,000. This year, the fifth annual Beyond the Pink hike up Sugarloaf Mountain on Oct. 9 raised around $34,000, she said.

More than 90 hikers, ages 1 to 62, from communities such as Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Poolesville, Kensington, Silver Spring, Greenbelt, Takoma Park, and Washington, DC, as well as areas in Virginia and as far away as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, donned purple T-shirts and hiked for prevention.

Ten to 15 of the hikers were breast cancer survivors, including Chevy Chase resident Maura Vanderzon.

Vanderzon, who's been in remission for five years, said she really likes the Breast Cancer Fund because its primary focus is on identifying the causes ( e.g., environmental toxins). She's recently been speaking out about the .

My goal is to put the "Cure" people out of business by finding the "Causes" and trying to stop the prevalence of breast and other cancers in our society," Vanderzon wrote in an e-mail to Patch.  "I have two daughters, and so I'm particularly concerned for their sakes."

Westmoreland said that in the annual sea of pink it's important to differentiate between awareness and prevention — that a more participatory dialogue between companies and the government can position us to actually prevent an epidemic.

"Awareness and cure are not the whole story," she said. "How do you bring down those odds? How do you prevent it? It's purple, and prevention is power."