Local teacher walks to help find cure

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For three days she walked. From the outskirts of Boston, she walked 20 miles a day toward the city. She camped and ate camp food. But, she wasn’t alone.
KMC teacher Colleen Luckie was among 2,000 people walking this summer in Boston, raising money for breast cancer research.

Alone, Ms. Luckie raised $12,725.55 – money mostly donated by KMC residents. Together, the walkers raised $4.1 million for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, which raises money for research in the fight against breast cancer.

“I lost my mom 20 years ago,” said Ms. Luckie, a teacher at Ramstein American Elementary School. “I did it to remember, for all of us who are growing older as women and for the future young girls.”

Ms. Luckie’s 60-mile trek through the Blue Hills area of Boston led her to discover something back here in Germany: a Susan G. Komen Foundation affiliate. The news energized her. And last week, she and some teacher colleagues rounded up 70 fellow teachers and friends and walked in the Komen Race for the Cure
in Frankfurt.

***image1***In this race, a two or five kilometer walk or run, there were no pledges. Participants paid €12 each. They called themselves the “Ramstein Sole Mates” and their group joined nearly 5,000 walkers from Europe, including breast cancer survivors, who wore pink shirts.
“It was an amazing thing,” Ms. Luckie said.

RAES teacher Belinda Sikorski was pleased to learn about the Komen foundation connection in Germany, she said, which hosts the Race for the Cure events. Her mother is a breast cancer survivor and she walked for her, and others, she said.

“I think cancer, in different forms, has touched so many people,” Ms. Sikorski said. “We were just a diverse group of people – young, old, men, women – walking together for a good cause.”