Jane McGrath an inspiration for Pinktober
- 6th October 2008
Walkers leave the carpark to begin the Pinktober 5km Charity walk from Kawana Shoppingworld to Pt Cartwright.
IT is one of the few times a bloke will happily call his pink shirt, pink.
Not salmon, or pale watermelon, or vintage peach.
They lined up in their hundreds at Kawana Shoppingworld yesterday morning –the guys and the girls – for the Pinktober 5km Charity Walk.
Raising funds for the Cindy Mackenzie Breast Cancer Foundation, the 600 walkers, clad in their finest pink and shades there-of, strode out on a 5km loop to Point Cartwright and back.
For every 10 two-legged walkers (that’s the human variety) there was a four-legged one – including little Princess, who was doing her best to push the pink cause.
Princess’s owner Vanessa McDonald said it took a special occasion for her pooch to go pink – namely, Easter and Pinktober.
As well as raising valuable funds for the foundation, Vanessa had used the walk for a personal cause.
“I had to lose 40kg to do it, but I did it,” she said yesterday.
“I couldn’t do the walk last year because I was 110kg.”
And the secret to dropping 40kg – it’s not just exercise and healthy eating.
“Getting an Alaskan Malamute, so he can drag me if I get lazy.”
The four-legged motivator answers to Cody, and avoided the pink treatment yesterday.
Vanessa said seeing breast cancer claim someone like Jane McGrath had really driven home the wide reach of the disease.
“I think there are a lot of people out here today, doing it for her,” she said.
Pinktober 2007 did not start with a similar walk – in hindsight, it would have been a good idea.
Yesterday’s event raised over $15,000 for the Cindy Mackenzie Breast Cancer Foundation – as much as the entire Pinktober awareness month last year.
Which creates a little issue as far as fundraising targets.
“Hopefully we can get quite close to...I don’t even know what to guess,” Brooke Neylan, from event sponsor Kawana Shoppingworld, said.
