When the Brass Ring Is a Cure

And hard to catch, and tantalizingly within reach. That makes Susan G. Koman for the Cure and its annual Race for the Cure so important. But cure for what?

Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever. In 1982, that promise became Susan G. Komen for the Cure and launched the global breast cancer movement.

Today, Komen for the Cure is the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists fighting to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cures.

Hard to think of a family untouched by breast cancer. When my mother died of it some years ago, the sympathy from friends came in the form of testimony – about sisters, mothers, grandmothers, nieces, daughters – the losses span the generations to cause grief whatever age you are, where ever your life has taken you.

Susan G. Koman for the Cure focuses its activities in the Washington D.C. area:

Funds raised from the Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure^® are granted to local and national programs that support Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s promise to save lives and end breast cancer forever.

Seventy-five percent of the Komen Global Race’s net income stays in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area to fund local screening, treatment and education programs for the medically underserved. The remaining dollars support the Komen Global Promise Fund, a program of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which is dedicated to reaching underserved people in areas where breast cancer mortality rates are the highest.

And so the race means a lot to the Nuclear Energy Institute, as a corporate citizen of the District, and to its employees, all of whom have seen breast cancer test their strength, love and resolve. So NEI fielded a team, in tribute to strength, love and resolve:

We congratulate them all. NEI slipped in and out of the top 20 list for money raised by a corporate team, and it’s important to recognize that money pulls the freight here, but we think it’s fair to say that running and walking for the cure means seeing that brass ring in the hazy distance – and going for it. And grabbing for it. So close – tantalizingly close.