Race for Cure awards organizers to help say thanks
Published: January 24, 2005
With more than 17,000 people expected to walk or run Saturday morning in the 2005 Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Race for the Cure, the South Florida affiliate will have a lot of people to thank.
After all, area walkers and sponsors raise big money to support the research and programs of the Komen Foundation. Last year’s local race, the 13th annual event, raised $790,000, 75 percent of which was donated to local groups for breast cancer education, low- or no-cost mammograms, and treatment.
Two Palm Beach women, Lynn Ciklin and Margaret Rodbell, play a major role in thanking race participants. Ciklin is chairwoman and Rodbell is co-chairwoman of the affiliate’s awards committee. In addition to awards for top race finishers, race organizers give team awards and honor breast cancer survivors.
Ciklin and Rodbell make sure medals arrive in time to be placed around the necks of breast cancer survivors as they cross the finish line on Flagler Drive in downtown West Palm Beach. Volunteers with awards sponsor J.P. Morgan will hand out about 1,100 survivor medals this year.
The women also help coordinate the recognition ceremony for survivors at the Meyer Amphitheatre.
Though they have been race volunteers for quite a while — Ciklin since its inception 14 years ago and Rodbell for five years — the event continues to provoke powerful emotions for them.
“After the awards, they have every single survivor come up on stage,” Rodbell said. “And you sit there and it’s a sea of pink and you can just see for as long as you can see. You can just see this line of women in their pink T-shirts all coming up on this stage. It’s amazing.”
Ciklin was successfully treated for breast cancer more than 20 years ago. Her mother, Faye Eissey of North Palm Beach, also is a breast-cancer survivor.
Rodbell’s mother, Delores Costello of Scottsdale, Ariz., survived breast cancer, too.
In recent weeks, the two have learned that two friends, women in their 30s, have been diagnosed with breast cancer. It is for these women, and for women who cannot afford to pay for diagnostic screening, that Ciklin and Rodbell said they continue supporting the Race for the Cure.
Ciklin said the Komen Foundation’s Web site, www.komen.org, is a valuable resource. She said research funded by the Komen Foundation, founded by Palm Beacher Nancy Brinker, has helped advance the treatment of breast cancer. The foundation has increased women’s awareness of the disease, which has led to life-saving early detection, Ciklin said.
“Those are all of the good things that they do. They do a ton of good things for women and men, too,” she said.
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