University of Illinois at Chicago
College of Applied Health Sciences

Access for Everyone: The Breast Cancer 3-Day

The Breast Cancer 3-Day is among the most recognizable fundraising events in the nation. Participants raise thousands of dollars in pledged support to benefit breast cancer research, treatment, education and prevention, then aim to walk 60 miles in just three days. But at the 2008 Chicago event in August 2008, participants weren't just walking. They were wheeling.

Eight people with disabilities—seven who use wheelchairs and one who uses a walker—participated as the All Abilities Team in the Breast Cancer 3-Day. The team was assembled, and the course made hospitable for them, by the National Center on Physical Activity and Disability (NCPAD), a renowned center at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Applied Health Sciences.

NCPAD looked at all angles of the event. First, a staff member traveled the 60-mile course months in advance, identifying the wheelchair-unfriendly aspects: curbs, crushed gravel paths, pit stops in grassy areas, inaccessible water stations, overnight tents that could not accommodate wheelchairs.

Beyond the course, the NCPAD team delved deep into training materials. The Breast Cancer 3-Day provides registered participants with extensive preparation resources, all of which NCPAD revised to consider wheelers as well as walkers. For example, there is a handbook of training exercises that had to be modified to emphasize upper-body strength and endurance for people using wheelchairs.

To ensure the hundreds of staff members and volunteers manning the event would be able to attend equally to all participants' needs, every one of them, including medical staff, went through a disability training and awareness presentation prepared by NCPAD and their partner on the project, the North Carolina Office on Disability and Health.

The day arrived with sunshine and temperatures benevolently in the mid-70s. The All Abilities Team assembled at the kick-off location in matching team T-shirts and buttons. Some of them had come from as far away as Georgia, Florida and California after having trained for months in their hometowns using the revised resources prepared by NCPAD.

“When someone opens a window of opportunity to make a change in the way the public views people with disabilities, I am honored to be a part of that process,” said Ashley Thomas, a team member who traveled to Chicago from Durham, N.C.

For three days, the team carried on. Four of the All Abilities Team members completed all 60 miles, 20 per day. That's not something every participant, regardless of ability, can say.

Before they were through, everyone on the course knew the group. More than a few walkers were proudly sporting All Abilities Team pins, handed out to them by their wheeling counterparts.

“It was the most rewarding experience of my professional life,” said Amy Rauworth, coordinator of the All Abilities Team and associate director of NCPAD, who walked as a volunteer with the All Abilities Team. “We got to test ourselves, our limits, our capabilities. How often in life do we get to do that?”

At the end of the last day of a Breast Cancer 3-Day walk, there is a tradition. After walkers cross the finish line, they take off one of the shoes that carried them so many miles and hold it silently above their heads in triumph and solidarity. The All Abilities Team was no different, each person taking off a glove and holding it high in the air, feeling the same triumph, the same solidarity. Exactly the same.

NCPAD, the North Carolina Office on Disability and Health, and the Breast Cancer 3-Day expect to continue their endeavors to perfect accessibility for future events, not only in Chicago, but nationwide.

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