In Honor and Memory Of

One week from right now, Amber and I will have finished 40 of our 60 miles in Chicago! We both took our final training walks this morning and are well prepared for the event. We are super excited as we start our packing and finish up all those last minute details.

One of those details is making a honorary/memorial list that we can display during the entire 60 miles of our walk. We want to make sure that everyone can see all the wonderful women we are walking in honor and in memory of!

We've compiled a list of breast cancer survivors who were honored by our donors' gifts, listed in the image below. I'm sure there are people who are still missing though, since I haven't yet specifically asked all of my wonderful donors who their gifts were in memory or honor of. Click on the image to zoom in!



If you see a loved one who is missing, please let me know by Tuesday, August 2. I need to get the list formatted and printed on Wednesday before we leave on Thursday!

Finished With Fundraising!

I've done a terrible job keeping my blog updated in the last few weeks, so now I have lots of stuff to report all in one post. First of all, we had a very successful fundraising event at our friend Danny's restaurant early last week. He is donating 25% of each person's bill who came in to Set'em Up Jack's last Tuesday evening specifically to support the 3-Day. We ended up having at least 40 people come in to eat and drink, and we ended up raising $250! He is such a great friend and so generous!

At the event I also got to meet some fellow 3-Day walkers who are taking a break from walking this year to be on the 3-Day crew--in Chicago! It was so nice of them to come all the way from KC just to meet me and support the cause. It will be great to see familiar faces when we get to lunch stops on the event!

Back to the subject of fundraising, although I was still several hundred dollars short of my goal as of the event last week, in the last seven days I've gotten TONS more donations. I hit my $2300 minimum on Saturday, and then hit my $2500 goal on Sunday! Once I share the money from the Jack's fundraiser with my teammate Amber, we will BOTH officially be finished, since she's only about two hundred dollars away from her minimum now! I'm so excited that we don't have to stress about our fundraising anymore!

With regard to training, I will admit I hadn't done more than a 10 mile day since the long 18/14 mile walks with Amber in Nebraska several weeks ago. It's just been so crazy hot here it was hard to get more than 8-10 miles in before it just got unbearable. Thankfully today's high was only supposed to be about 95, so after walking the dogs 3 miles at about 6 a.m., my friend Faith and I set out to walk about 6.5 miles from campus to my house, and then walk the 6.5 miles back to our cars on campus after a 15-20 minute break. It was hot and miserable by the time we finished at around 11, but we did it! I'm feeling fairly confident that I'll be okay with all of the walking in Chicago, and I'm feeling super thankful that the temperatures are as high there as they are in Lawrence!

Fundraising and Training Update

I'm excited to report that it's been a terrific week for both training and fundraising! Chad and I just got back from a trip to Nebraska to visit our friends Jake and (my teammate) Amber, so Amber and I got to walk both a 14 mile and an 18 mile training walk together. Although our 18 miler was hot and Amber struggled with a few blisters, we survived and are feeling more prepared than ever for Chicago. We will be finishing up the 60 mile walk just one month from today!

Thankfully, Amber and I have both raised more than half of our total needed funds, thanks to the generosity of 48 donors between us. The fundraising really picked up for me last week, thanks in part to several brand new donors who saw my posts on Facebook. I'll reach my goal with just 30 more people making a $35 gift in the next 30 days! The end is definitely in sight!