2,000 sign up for Bangor’s Race for Cure

BANGOR – The city’s waterfront will be dressed in pink on Sunday.

More than 2,000 people have registered to participate in the 11th annual Komen Maine Race for the Cure, which will be held Sunday morning at the Bangor’s Waterfront. The race is affiliated with the national Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, which was founded in 1982 to combat breast cancer.

The Bangor event’s race director, Sally Bilancia, said that many people sign up for the race in the last few days, but she is encouraged by the money brought in through online campaigns.

“Online fundraising has tripled from last year,” Bilancia said. Many people have created their own Web sites, posting personal survivor stories and event photos, to prompt friends and relatives to pledge.

Nancy Brinker started the Komen foundation as a promise to her dying sister. Brinker told Komen she would do everything she could to end breast cancer. Today there are races across the country, as well as in Germany, Italy and Puerto Rico, to raise money for the fight against breast cancer, Bilancia said.

Online registration for new participants is now closed, but people who already have established pledge Web sites can still collect money through the Internet, Bilancia said. New participants can sign up at the race store next to J.C. Penney in the Bangor Mall 4-8 p.m. today, 4-7 p.m. Friday and noon-4 p.m. Saturday. People also can register the morning of the race from 7:30 to 9:30.

The 5K run and walk will begin at 10 a.m., and the 1K walkers will begin shortly after the 5K racers depart. The racecourse will begin on Front Street at the Bangor Waterfront, follow Main Street to Buck Street, circle around and return to the waterfront. The event will wrap up with awards at 11:30 a.m. A hot air balloon also will provide rides in exchange for race donations.

Last year, more than 3,400 people participated in the race and more than $180,000 was raised. Organizers cannot spend more than 25 percent of the funds raised on race expenses, per the request of the national foundation, Bilancia said. After race costs are covered, 75 percent of the money stays in state, funding breast care education, screenings and treatment. The remainder of the money is sent to the Komen foundation in Dallas, Texas, which awards grants to institutions around the country performing breast cancer research.

The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor was one of the institutions selected to receive a $250,000 grant for research in 2006. So while some of the money is sent to the national headquarters, most of that has returned to the state in the form of the research grant, Bilancia said.

In the first 10 years of the Maine event, the organization gave more than $1 million in grants to organizations committed to preventing and treating breast cancer.

Bilancia first participated in the Komen race in 1999 with her sister Lynn Wardwell, who was celebrating her five-year anniversary cancer-free. Since the 1999 race, Bilancia has worked on the Bangor race, and she has found every year rewarding.

“You work so hard for this event and it’s such a high to see all the women wearing pink and the men wearing gray,” said Bilancia, referring to the breast cancer survivors who attend.