TBBCF NEWS

That's how important the Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation is to her. Founded by her late friend Norma Logan in 2006, the foundation will have raised more than $2 million to fund 18 cancer researchers by the end of this year.

That's $2 million by a tiny nonprofit created by a New London woman who died of breast cancer two months after she launched her cause.

"Just keep the hope alive," Norma Logan wrote in an e-mail to friends and family a few months before she died on April 20, 2006.

That's what Conn was doing on Oct. 2, when she set out on the fifth annual 26.2-mile Walk Across Southeastern Connecticut, the primary fundraiser for the TBBCF.

She'd injured her foot a few days before, but there was no evidence of a break when she had it X-rayed. So Conn, a Pfizer Inc. scientist and co-owner of the Dutch Tavern, decided she'd do the walk marathon anyway, living up to the promises she made to those who had pledged money to the foundation in lieu of her walking.

Conn is one of 21 people who have walked in all five marathons since 2006. And as much as she does it for her late friend, she does it in the hope of finding effective treatment, or a cure, for breast cancer.

Which is the same reason that Roseann McGarvey of Norwich walked almost two miles after tripping at the start of this year's marathon before consenting to leave long enough to go to a medical center and have her broken wrist set in a splint. Then she got a ride back to catch up with other walkers in Niantic and walked the last seven miles to the finish at Harkness Park.

"My minor injury was nothing compared to what other women face," McGarvey said about the pain, indignities and losses suffered by those diagnosed with breast cancer.

Logan didn't live long enough to see the long-distance walk that she envisioned as a fundraiser for breast cancer research materialize, but I bet she's smiling down from heaven these days on the wildly successful nonprofit she hatched.

Every dollar the Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation raises (it's named for another local breast cancer victim who Logan had befriended) goes to research. Logan worked in the breast cancer research field and was dismayed by how much of what other nonprofits raised went to overhead.

She couldn't let go of the idea of a nonprofit that directed all of its largesse to the cause.

"You may be thinking what could our little nonprofit do; we can't compete with the likes of the (Susan G.) Komen Foundation," she said in an e-mail to friends four months before her death. "Well, we aren't proposing to do that. The Komen Foundation is wonderful and does great work. But even if we raise only $30,000 in our first year, that is $30,000 that would go directly to funding better treatment options and hopefully a cure."

Six months after she sent that message, the first walk marathon was held. This October's was the fifth, and in addition to Martha Conn and Roseann McGarvey, 355 other walkers joined them this year. All told, more than 1,500 walkers have participated since 2006.

Every walker has his or her own reason, but they're all united in their determination to end the scourge of breast cancer.

"This insidious disease robs people of their spouses, mothers, sisters, and friends. It steals dreams and leaves emotional voids that will never be filled."

Those are Logan's words. She wrote them in an e-mail to her friends Oct. 14, 2005, after returning home from the wake of Terri Brodeur, a 41-year-old mother of three young children who had died of complications resulting from breast cancer.

Logan inspired people when she was alive and still inspires them today. She is the spirit that moved Martha Conn to walk 17 miles before calling it quits and going for a second X-ray, a test that confirmed her foot was indeed broken. And she's the inspiration behind Rosann McGarvey finishing the walk she started, and every other walk marathoner and TBBCF contributor.

Your "little nonprofit" is making a very big impact, Norma Logan.

Ann Baldelli is associate editorial page editor.