Taking another step toward a cure

Efforts from Saratoga’s 2013 Race for the Cure aided in taking another step forward in finding a cure for cancer last week.

Two representatives from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation met at Platte River Pizza Co. Thursday to receive a contribution of $7,600, raised and given on behalf of the Saratoga Middle/High School’s SkillsUSA chapter. SkillsUSA helped coordinate Saratoga’s second annual Race for the Cure, which generated part of the money going toward the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

The Race for the Cure, which took place at Saratoga Resort and Spa in July, was organized by Scott Bokelman, Saratoga SkillsUSA Chairperson, and Saratoga High School students including Alicia Zaragoza, Cruz Escobedo, Haley Soles, Heather Oxford, Peyten Fisher, Veronica Lincoln, Shelby McGuire and Katie Loose. Bokelman and the girls were in attendance at Platte River Pizza to present the check, and were also joined by Randy Raymer and his wife Diana, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer earlier this year.

The Komen Foundation’s representatives who attended were Candida Odde, Komen Foundation Missions Manager in Evanston, and Maria Medina, Executive Director of the Wyoming Komen Foundation Chapter in Cheyenne. Bokelman said he was proud of the money raised and contributed, and grateful that it was all going toward a good cause.

“We raised $7,500, and we also received $100 from a sorority in town, which sold smoothies and donated a portion of that money during the race,” he said. “Randy and Diana helped generate the money, as well as the Lions Club, and Tim Lamprecht was also a big organizer for the Lions Club.”

A check for $4,200 of the total amount came through from the Saratoga Lions Club, which helped create “Team Diana,” a Race for the Cure team of 40 participants created in recognition of Raymer. The $4,200 check was presented at the Hotel Wolf in August, where Bokelman totaled up money from the actual race and other sources.

“This year when we counted up the cash box at the end of the walk, we had a $2,000 profit in there and we got 23 sponsors of $100 apiece, so that’s $4,300,” Bokelman said. “Tim had a check donated to us for $4,200, so you’re looking at $8,500, and then we take out the cost of t-shirts, signs and other costs for running the walk, which is about $1,000.”

Bokelman said the $7,500 raised for donation was more than six times what they made last year, and that costs were able to be cut from doing much of the preparation work themselves.

“By printing our own t-shirts, making our own signs and doing our own work, we also kept the costs down so we could donate more money,” he said. “We also kicked in somewhere around $400 or $500 from our tech program to donate, in addition to the money we generated through the race and all the volunteers that helped.”

For their provided boost in the Race for the Cure’s preparation, Bokelman said he was grateful for all the female Saratoga High School students who took the time out of their busy lives to plan the walk.

“It makes them aware of cancer and what we’re going to have to deal with in our lifetime,” he said. “Some of them have relatives and so on who have had cancer, so they know where we’re coming from.”

Bokelman said he also felt a special connection to the walk based on his family’s experience with cancer.

“I get pretty emotional with this, since both of my sisters have had breast cancer,” he said. “This an awesome thing and hopefully we can keep it going. We’re going to try and set a goal of maybe more than $10,000 next year and see if we can meet that.”

Odde said she was grateful for the contribution, and mentioned that the annual Race for the Cure serves as the Komen Foundation’s No. 1 fundraising medium. She said she hoped to improve services for women in Carbon County and other rural areas of Wyoming.

“What we really want to do is reach the women that so desperately need the services,” Odde said. “Quite often those women are the women that reside in rural areas and rural counties. On average in our state women have 76 miles just to get screened, and that’s not even touching or talking about treatment. As you and I both know, treatment is not readily available in our state, so quite often people have to travel over the border.”

Odde mentioned also the hundreds of miles that some rural Wyoming women have to travel to and from treatment, which may include mammograms, and other barriers that make it difficult for an average woman to get their much needed service.

“We have barriers that are affording the gas, having somebody to watch their kids so they can access treatment,” she said. “There are a lot of barriers to services. Not only do we have barriers to them actually going and getting a mammogram, but then there are barriers to once they have that mammogram and those results, how do they even start the treatment?”

Patient navigation was what Odde said makes up a large portion of what she is trying to push for in Wyoming, in order to give women everywhere in Wyoming a sense of where to start in the early detection phase.

“What patient navigation means is when a woman walks into an office they don’t know even where to begin, and it will take them from their mammogram to helping them find resources available in their area, and a lot of times out of their area,” Odde said. “How do they access the resources available to them, and how does their support system help them? We’re really talking about from mammogram to survivorship—that whole spectrum—and asking what are the resources, what are the services and how does that woman find the support in their communities? What that means for us is we’re trying to dramatically increase our granting dollars, so we can have a grant in all 23 counties.”

Odde said Wyoming is currently 48th in the nation for screening rates, and that she hopes one day women in all 23 of the state’s counties can have easy access for screenings and other treatment.

“We’re sitting horribly, and we’ve got to do some drastic things to change that,” she said. “That means that we’re going to have to be in counties and reach out to rural Wyoming women, who typically take care of themselves last in a family. A woman will make sure the kids are to the doctor and the husband gets to the doctor, but they are very last usually, when it comes to rural women and the way we think and take care of our families.”

 

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