TeamWalk set for 25th year of raising money to support LGH cancer patients

HELPING OUT

Event has raised more than $15M

From left, Katherine McMahon, of Newton, N.H. with her daughters Claire, 5, and Nora, 3, and her husband Dan. Katherine received treatment for her breast cancer at Lowell General Hospital’s Cancer Center, and the center’s TeamWalk for CancerCare funded her family’s weekend trip to Boston in September 2022. She’s since finished treatment with no evidence of disease. COURTESY OF LOWELL GENERAL HOSPITAL

Image

By Peter Currier

pcurrier@lowellsun.com

LOWELL >> For the 25th year thousands of people will go on a three-mile walk through Lowell on Sunday for the annual TeamWalk for CancerCare event to support cancer patients at Lowell General Hospital.

The annual TeamWalk event has raised more than $15 million over its first 24 years to help more than $40,000 Lowell General Hospital Cancer Center patients as they navigate the realities of a terrible diagnosis. While many cancer fundraisers and walks are meant to raise money for the development of treatments or a cure for cancer, TeamWalk raises money to help patients deal with the smaller day to day issues they may face.

“A lot of these walks try to find a cure, which is a great and noble effort, but what we do is help people who are fighting the disease to make that fight a little bit easier,” said Lowell General Hospital Board of Trustees member Bruce Robinson. “Things like paying for wigs or prosthetics, paying for their heating bill, building a ramp so they can use their wheelchair.”

Robinson has been involved with TeamWalk since its inception in 2000. The unaltered goal of it throughout that time has been to take away some of the smaller burdens a cancer patient can face so they can better focus on recovery.

“If you are going through chemotherapy or radiation it is often ‘how do I get there, who is going to take me?’ Will it be your spouse? Somebody taking time from work to help you? We try to take the burden off for all these little things that people fighting cancer have to think about,” said Robinson.

The walk begins and ends at the Tsongas Center’s C parking lot, with the route taking the walkers east along the Merrimack River, down onto French Street and Bridge Street, then to Merrimack Street, Palmer Street, Market Street and Dutton Street before going back up past Lowell High School and then west along the canal to go around LeLacheur Park and back to the Tsongas Center.

Andrea Jackson, the TeamWalk manager for Lowell General Hospital, said that the walk will be happening “rain or shine.” In the 25 years of the walk, Jackson said that the only real way it has changed has been through how much it has grown.

“As big as it has become, we still keep that community feel about it,” said Jackson.

Those who still want to participate in the walk can register online until Saturday evening at Teamwalk.org. There will be in-person registration starting at 8 a.m. Sunday until the walk begins. Opening ceremonies start at 9:30 a.m., and the walk will begin at 9:45 a.m.

A refreshment tent will be open between 10:30 a.m. and noon, and the closing ceremonies will begin at 11:30 a.m., during which there will be a check presentation for the approximate amount raised through this year’s event. Jackson said that all walkers are welcome to come participate, and there is no minimum donation required. She said they expect somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 participants.

“This is such a fabulous community that never lets us down, still going strong 25 years later,” said Jackson.