A good walk can make a great difference. That distance — 5 kilometers, or 3.1 miles — can go a long way toward helping the effort to stop lung cancer.
The Breathe Deep Columbia 5K Walk and Lung Awareness Fair is being held on Saturday, April 20, beginning at the Lakefront Plaza in Downtown Columbia. The fundraising event is made possible by the LUNGevity Foundation, in collaboration with Columbia Association (CA), Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Associates and Maryland Oncology Hematology.
Those attending will participate in a 5K walk on Columbia’s pathways from the Lakefront Plaza to and around Wilde Lake, and then back. Strollers are welcome, as are pets (but be sure to clean up after your pet). Only portions of the walk are wheelchair accessible. There is an alternative 1K route for those challenged by the longer walk. The event begins with team pictures at 8 a.m., registration at 8:30 a.m. and a program at 9 a.m. The walk starts at 10 a.m, and the fair ends at 2 p.m.
Participants will have the opportunity to celebrate and honor their loved ones, families and friends who have been affected by lung cancer, a devastating disease that impacts 1 in 14 Americans and claims more than 160,000 lives per year. They will leave Breathe Deep Columbia knowing that the money they raised will fund research to end lung cancer.
Research made possible by funding from LUNGevity is finding ways to expedite the development of an effective early detection strategy to discover all lung cancers while they are still localized and treatable, and to identify therapeutic agents that provide customized genetic intervention for lung cancer in order to extend patients’ lives and improve their quality of life post-diagnosis.
Breathe Deep Columbia is also a lung awareness fair with exhibitors and health screenings. For more information on registering, volunteering, sponsoring or donating to the event, go to Lungevity.org/Columbia. Enter code “icare” for $5 off the registration fee.
This year’s event honors the memory of the late Dr. Clement B. Knight, a local oncologist who passed away last August.
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