The Daily Campus

Issue date: 10/1/07 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Kevin McQuade Members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority raised more than $3,000 for breast cancer research during their 5K walk Sunday.

Sorority members raised about $3,400 for breast cancer research in just two hours Sunday in Kappa Kappa Gamma's fifth annual "Walk for the Kure." The group made just under $1,900 at the same event last year.

Student participants in the event donated $5 and non-student participants donated $10 and walked five kilometers - 3.1 miles - around campus in a show of support for breast cancer research.

Around 150 people participated in the walk during the two hours that the group was set up on Fairfield Way, but the number of people who donated money to the cause was much higher, according to Kappa Kappa Gamma's philanthropy chair, Kelsey Kermode, a 6th-semester nursing major. She said that having the event on open house weekend definitely helped.

"We didn't even plan to have it during open house weekend - we just wanted to have it earlier in the semester than we did last year and to use it to kickoff to Breast Cancer Awareness Month," she said. "But it's easier to get donations when there are more people on campus."

Kappa Kappa Gamma members waded through the crowd of open house attendees on Fairfield Way outside the Student Union and brought back jars full of donations each time.

Kermode said that the sorority would try to plan to have the event on the same day as the university's open house next year, because of the increased donations.

The money raised by the group will go to Friends For An Earlier Breast Cancer Test, an organization founded by a fellow sister of Kappa Kappa Gamma. In its literature, the organization bills itself as "the only [non-profit] organization in the United States focused exclusively on funding research to find a biological detection test for breast cancer.

Kermode described the event as a venue for creating public awareness about early detection and the necessity of yearly mammograms.

"Our cause is early detection because we haven't yet found a cure for breast cancer," she said.

"It's all for a really great cause," said Laura Papalexis, a 7th-semester nursing major and Kappa Kappa Gamma sister.

Many sorority members brought friends and family with them to the event.

Many girls who have mothers or other family members who have survived breast cancer, bring the survivors to the walk, Kermode explained.

"We had a lot of people here sharing their stories about breast cancer with us," said Sarah Kinsley, a 7th-semester psychology major and Kappa Kappa Gamma sister.

Kappa Kappa Gamma is also attending the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer five-mile walk around Bushnell Park in Hartford Oct. 14.



Contact Aly Shea at

Alison.Shea@UConn.edu.

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