3,900 Strong in 2008!

Here we are starting to cross the I-90 bridge on Day 1 of last year's walk. The bridge is completely full and the line at this point stretches on both sides of the bridge itself. There were roughly 2,300 walkers last year.

I've just heard that we will have 3,500 walkers and 400 crew members this year -- a huge increase! So I'm hopeful that, even though each of us has been unable to raise as much money in a tough economic year, we'll still bring in around $6 million for Seattle's 2008 walk.

This year is just one of many that I will devote to eradicating breast cancer in my lifetime. If you are reading but have not donated to the campaign of one of those 3,500 walkers, please consider doing it now. Consider the words of my son James, after he lunched with us last year on Day 2:

Many people my age are quite cynical -- I at times certainly am -- yet watching this spectacle, I came to realize that many of the people throwing their legs forward, foot after foot, enduring tremendous pain, walk in the memory of lost friends and family, and quite a few themselves are survivors. They walk not only for themselves and their immediate circle, but for all threatened by a horrible disease, and no one could be a cynic in the face of such a diverse group of motivated and positive humans. This is the sort of activism and thinking we speak of in sad remembrance when talking about the civil rights movement (one that Annie was a part of), or the sort of energy we dream about when we talk about changing our future as a community or a country, but what Annie and all involved in this walk are doing shows that the times aren't so dark as they are serious. Today after eating lunch with my mother, father and Mary Gardner, I drove back along I-5 with a giant smile on my face and felt so so proud of my mother and honored to have sat alongside all of those who walked today.