WELCOME TO THE SAN FRANCISCO

Taking place Friday, October 18 - Sunday, October 20th

Registration Is Open... Join Us! 

Are you ready to help make an immediate impact in the lives of people living with breast cancer in the Greater Bay Area and help fund metastatic disease research?  Then this event is for you!

why this EVENT is SPECIAL

We just ordinary people. We are just walking. But we are making a huge impact.

Many of our community members have been walking to raise money for breast cancer for years. Three years, five years… even 10 years. We love it! We love the camaraderie created over the months we train together. We love the friendships that are formed between strangers. This is a community of strong women (we'd love for a few great men to join us too.) And, we love walking! 

Just people. Just walking.

We went back to the drawing board when creating this event. This event is bare bones – the goal is that the maximum of all funds raised are given to our beneficiaries – and we are extremely careful of how we spend our donor’s dollars. We do not have pink tents and there will be no balloon arch. We have created an event experience that is pared down which leaves space for moments of contemplation and reflection - heartfelt conversations shared between new friends, hug when you need it or a woohoo when you come to the top of a hill. Because this event is small, our community really gets to know one another and deep connections are forged among us while we are on the road.

Just people. Just walking.

The Immediate Impact Breast Cancer Walk, a project In Our Lifetime a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is a community of long-time multi-day breast cancer fundraising walk participants who are now directing their fundraising efforts locally vs. events whose funds are directed to national breast cancer organizations.  

This event is different than other breast cancer walks because:

• our grant recipients are nominated and voted by walk participants
• a minimum of 80% of donations goes directly to the event beneficiaries
• walk participants pay their own fees to cover meals, accommodations, shirts, etc. so those costs are not covered by donations
• its organizers are committed to full fiscal transparency
• the event’s focus is helping ease the burden of the medically under-served and funding metastatic disease research   

Having been fundraisers ourselves for over a decade, we pledge total fiscal transparency for this event – we want our donors to know exactly where their money is going and how it is being spent. Funds raised by the 2013 event will be granted to four nonprofit breast cancer organizations.

Our three Bay Area Beneficiary Organizations provide services and funds to low-income and under-served people living with breast cancer:   Breast Cancer Emergency Fund, Charlotte Maxwell Complimentary Clinic and Friend to Friend Fund - Partners in Care at UCSF Mt. Zion.

Our National Beneficiary Organization is METAvivor Research and Support. METAvivor is the only national nonprofit focused on metastatic disease. Funds granted will be directed to the Research Program.

Each organization has pledged that 100% of the grant monies received from this event will go straight into client services or to fund programs – not toward administrative expenses.

We are very proud to partner with these organizations and support their vital work!  To learn more about the services and programs these organizations provide, please visit the Beneficiaries page of this website.

Our goal is a minimum of 80% of donations will be granted to our beneficiaries.

To see our Impact Statement from the 2012 event, please visit this page of our website.

WHY WE WALK

We have walked, we have fundraised, we have donated and as a result of our dedication we have made great inroads to better treatments and earlier detection of the disease.

But despite decades of cultivating awareness of the epidemic, and the billions of dollars raised for research and education, we are no closer to understanding the causes of and how to prevent breast cancer. Breast cancer is a complex disease that encompasses many sub-types.  

This year in the U.S. 230,480 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and 39,520 women will die from this disease. Our mothers, aunts, sisters, grandmothers and friends are being diagnosed, one every 2.5 minutes.

The biggest risk factor for breast cancer is being a woman. (1% of all breast cancers occur in men.) And, a woman’s lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is 1 in 8.

150,000 Americans are estimated to be living with metastatic, or Stage 4, breast cancer. Stage 4 breast cancer can be treated, but it is considered incurable.   The 39,520 deaths per year are all attributable to metastatic disease. 

CHANGING THE COURSE OF THIS DISEASE

We as individuals may feel powerless at our inability to affect big changes in the course of this disease. We can, however, make an immediate impact person to person, helping to change lives. Join us as we lace up our walking shoes to participate in the Immediate Impact Walk weekend.

This event will ensure the funds raised will be directed locally to the people who need them most – the poorest of the poor in our communities for whom the safety net barely helps meet basic living needs: shelter, food, utilities, complementary healing services and medicines as well as medical supplies.  

Each one of us can make a difference. Together we make change.

We believe in a world without breast cancer as a life threatening disease, In Our Lifetime and we will get there step, by step. We hope you will join us on this journey!

Please click here for the 2012 Immediate Impact Event Expense Report!  We granted each beneficiary $30,000.

 

 

The Immediate Impact Breast Cancer Walk ™ is produced by