York Town News
Walking the walk: local residents still making strides for the Jimmy Fund
By Virginia L. Woodwell
The Bagel Basket's Bagel Babes and the York-based Team SOCS, two groups made up largely or entirely of local residents, literally walked the walk back in June to raise money for The Jimmy Fund. The teams are continuing to gather donations through Nov. 1 to support the cause.
Pictured are members of Bagel Babes team, Sue Malett, Claire Franey, Kate Carr, Michaela Franey, Kelsey Caramihalis and Liz Caramihalis, and junior walkers from Team SOCS including Courtney Koos, Haley Francis, Abigail Goodrich, Jack Northrop, Madison Koos, Kelley Francis and Lily Chetosky with one of their most loyal fans, Max the yellow Lab.
Courtesy photos
Some 24 walkers operating in two distinct teams - with almost all members from York or with close ties to York - joined 7,000 others back on Sunday, June 17, to participate in the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk to raise money for cancer care and cancer research.
On that day, which was sunny and hot, 2,000 of the 7,000 participants walked the entire 26.2 mile route, which is exactly the same as that followed by runners in the famed Boston Marathon. Many more of the 7,000 - the majority, in fact - opted to walk half the route, starting in Wellesley and ending at Copley Square in Boston. Others, including some of the cancer victims the walk is designed to serve, chose to walk only the last three miles.
Most members of the two York groups participating that day, however, walked the entire route. And, between them, regardless of how far each member walked, they raised a total of $24,000. But they're still counting, because a month remains in this funding campaign.
Participants in the Jimmy Fund Marathon work in teams, and one of York's two teams consisted of six employees of The Bagel Basket: Sue Malett, Claire Franey, Kate Carr, Michaela Franey, Kelsey Caramihalis and Liz Caramihalis.
Liz Caramihalis served as their team captain, they dubbed themselves "The Bagel Babes," and they were among the 2,000 who walked the entire route.
According to member Claire Franey, who described the event this week, they started shortly before 7 a.m. in Hopkinton, Mass., and finished some seven hours later, at about 2 p.m. The walk wasn't a race, Franey explained, but the group "walked at a good clip," she said, taking respite at way-stations that provided snacks, water, porta-potties and sometimes even live music, every three miles or so.
Along the way, the group also got moral support via repeated phone calls from Sean Mitchell, owner of The Bagel Basket and the Bagel Babes' boss, who also served, with several others, as one of the group's generous sponsors - and they were further inspired, as they said all the walkers were, by enlarged photos of young cancer victims placed at one-mile intervals.
"The whole thing was tough," Claire said, "but Heartbreak Hill wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be."
The Bagel Babes' goal, she added, was to raise $2,000. They've raised, instead, thus far, almost $4,000.
"We hope to make it a yearly event because it's been so successful this year," she said.
The other York-based group called themselves "Team SOCS," for Seeking Out A Cure [With] Sneakers." They numbered 18 in all, walked in pink T-shirts identifying them as Team SOCS members, and all but four had done the walk before. For some, in fact, this year's was their fourth or fifth Jimmy Fund Marathon Walk.
Leslie Ware of York served as Team SOCS captain; six years ago, she'd walked Avon's breast cancer walk in support of breast cancer survivor Liz Hayden, but five years ago she switched to the Jimmy Fund Marathon Walk, and she's participated in it each year since. This year, Hayden, who works at Anne Erwin Sotheby's International Realty in York, was there to walk with her across the finish line.
Team SOCS was also unique in having a junior as well as an adult component, with seven youngsters ranging in age from 8 to 14 walking alongside their moms.
Present from York were Cindy Francis and her children, Haley, 14, and Kelley, 10; Stacie Goodrich and her daughter, Abigail, 10; Sally Northrop and her son, Jack, 8, and Judy and Shirley Delaney of Cape Neddick.
The other Team SOCS members were Vicki Whalen of Eliot; Julie Melanson of Newburyport, Mass.; Renee Thomas of Portsmouth, N.H.; Donna Marcotte of Stratham, N.H.; Karen Koos, with her children, Courtney, 12, and Madison, 10, of Castine, and Lynn Kuessner with Lily Chetosky, 10, both of Hinsdale, Ill.
According to member Cindy Francis, the group got extra support at their rest stops from two sources: one represented by two dogs, Max, a yellow Lab, and Barnicle, a black Lab, who were waiting at each stop with "big smooches," and the other, the women's husbands, dubbed "The Cabana Boys," also present at every rest stop for cheering and massages.
Not all Team SOCS members walked the entire route, Francis reported, but those who did completed their walk in seven and a half hours, leaving Hopkinton at 6 a.m. and arriving in Boston, after a stop for lunch, at about 3:30 p.m.
"But," Francis stressed, "it's not about the mileage. It's about the fundraising."
And, as of Monday, Oct. 2, her team had raised $20,079.40.
This year's Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk's goal is to raise $5 million. The money will be used to support cancer research and care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Donations may be made until Nov. 1 at The Bagel Basket or through either or both of the two teams at the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Web site at www.jimmyfundwalk.org. Click on "Support a Walker."
