Breast cancer walk a howling success

Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens is quiet until we reached Borough Hall. Then a burst of sound and color - bolts of pink balloons stretch skyward testing their tethering ropes like racehorses in the starting gate. It's Sunday, October 15, 2006, and a crowd has gathered for the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk.
Cancer is the great leveler, indifferent to race, and class and the crowd of walkers and volunteers reflects this reality. Although breast cancer is a women's disease, the composition of the crowd indicates that the impact, even of breast cancer, extends beyond the patient, affecting husbands, children, friends, and communities as a whole.
The walk attracted 400 volunteers; among them Shaquana Martin, a student at Queens High School of Teaching. Although Shaquana does not know anyone who has had cancer, she says, &#8220It's a good cause and I wanted to help.” Shaquana has given up her entire Sunday to be here.
More people arrive and soon the members of the Juniper Park Dog Association begin to gather. The coordinator for this group is seventeen-year-old Erica Mizutani. A student at Summit High School in Jamaica Estates, Erica is accompanied by her mother and a friend from school.
Her mother Jean Mizutani said, &#8220Just in our small group of dog owners, two people got breast cancer within a year.”
&#8220It's important for us to do something positive for the community. We live in Queens. Juniper Park is the center of our lives. We want to make our community better, stronger,” Jean said.
The group's commitment is apparent not only from their custom made T-shirts but also the pink bandanas the dogs wear, and Molly, association member Barbara Schanker's dog, proudly sports a pink visor.
The Juniper Park Dog association has raised more than $13,000 dollars making it the highest fund raising group in Queens. After the event, the American Cancer Society reported that there were 7,000 participants in the Queens walk who raised over $600,000 for the fight against breast cancer.