Celebrating the Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation’s 20th year 

Over the next several months leading up to the annual Walk For A Cure, readers will find the TBBCF newsletter’s Timeline Celebrating the Foundation’s 20th Anniversary.

Each month, we’ll look at milestones on the two-decade timeline and share highlights and stories from those impactful days.

For April, we’re honoring Foundation volunteer leaders who have been there from the beginning. Their work included bi-weekly meetings, fundraising event proposals, leading fundraising campaigns, and acting as Foundation spokespersons. 

Called Logan’s Heroes, they are:

Lisa Bragaw, Marcie Brensilver, Tim Brodeur, Lisa Carroll, Stacey Gaultieri, Mary Lenzen, Becky Lillie, Jean Logan, Michael Logan, Phil Maniscalco, Sandy Maniscalco, Jackie McCaffery, Geralyn McPhail, Mary Miett, Lisa Mongue, Pat Newborg, Lia Scarles, and Michelle Sottile.

And we’re looking back at 2006 milestones:

• Norma hosted first TBBCF General Meeting 2/4/2006
• BOD and SAB formed 
• Regular meetings began to plan Inaugural Walk
• Norma died April 20, 2006
• IRS granted 501c3 status, May 25, 2006
• Inaugural Walk, Oct. 14, 2006
• 124 full marathoners 
• Raised $300,000
• Supported four grants in 2007

TBBCF in 2006: Ordinary People Engaged In An Extraordinary Pursuit

It was September 2006. Pat Newborg bolted awake from a dream. In it, walkers were being stopped on the bridge that crosses the Connecticut River.  

“A voice in my head told me we needed a permit from the state to walk on state highways! Two weeks before the walk! Yikes!”

Contacting the state Department of Transportation, it turned out that the wife of the official who grants those permits had signed up to do the walk. A few forms required filling out, but she was all set. “He happily granted the request!” 

Pat was joined by her friend Lisa Carroll as co-chair of the Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation’s inaugural Walk Across Southeastern Connecticut.

“That ask came at a great time, as I had recently lost my mother-in-law to breast cancer,” Lisa recalled. “Doing something that helped raise funds to support breast cancer research was comforting.”

A year before, in October 2005, the grassroots foundation was born. Read all about its beginnings, and its leader and inspiration, Norma Logan, who died from breast cancer in April 2006, here. 

Many months had gone into the planning for the inaugural Walk; the original leadership team, the Foundation’s Board of Directors, walk team captains, Lisa and Pat all worked tirelessly to ensure that it went off without a hitch. 

“The entire planning team walked the walk about a week before. We were so dedicated to making it impactful, meaningful and safe for the walkers that we wanted to walk-the-walk to experience what the walkers would experience.”

The goal was to raise tens of thousands of dollars to fund and support young, dedicated breast cancer researchers. 

Lisa and Pat were only too happy to do Walk logistics, but the job of asking for donations or equipment was not a task they were looking forward to. 

“Lucky for us, we had Ellen Swercewski who had no problem with that,” Pat shared.

On the morning of the Oct. 14, 2006 Walk, Pat and Lisa saw the sun rise and “knew it was going to be a good day.”

“The weather was chilly, but it was going to be sunny. We all agreed that Norma was watching over us,” Lisa and Pat shared. “We rode around, almost giddy with excitement during the walk. We couldn’t believe how well everything was going.”

As was noted in the Foundation’s first-ever newsletter, endurance sports fundraisers have become a very successful vehicle for organizations. For the Foundation’s 26.2-mile marathon walk, of the 149 marathon walkers, 116, or 75 percent, had never participated in an endurance event. 

They were just “ordinary people engaged in an extraordinary pursuit.”

Everyday folks who gave their hearts, time, and energy to the Foundation’s mission: raising money to fund breast cancer research. Beyond the original Foundation leaders and volunteers who were committed, the Foundation grew to what it is and what it has accomplished over 20 years as a result of everyday folks.

One of those ordinary people engaged in an extraordinary pursuit was Ann Baldelli, a regionally well-known and respected journalist and writer. Beyond walking the Walk, she used her media voice to tell the TBBCF story. In several stories about TBBCF for The Day, she inspired many with her account of finishing the 26.2 marathon Walk Across Southeastern Connecticut with three women friends. The small team, all marathon novices, were joined at times and in the end, by walk leaders Marcie Brensilver, and Sandy Maniscalco, TBBCF co-founder with Norma Logan.

They were the last to arrive at the finish line. Jubilant!

“As we neared Harkness, we could see that people were clapping and shouting. A brisk wind was blowing and the six of us were beaming. We were ecstatic to be there, grateful to have legs and feet and hearts strong enough to propel us there, and ready to sign up to do it again next year. And guess what, we already have dibsies on the back of the pack for the Oct. 6, 2007, Walk Across Southeastern Connecticut. I wouldn't give up being last for anything, except a cure for cancer.”

Almost two decades later, Ann reflects on that day and the Foundation’s impact. 

“It was the summer of 2006 when I first met Sandy Maniscalco when she visited The Day promoting the inaugural TBBCF Walk Across Southeastern Connecticut to raise money for breast cancer research. At the time, I was a features writer at the newspaper and assigned to the story, and as Sandy explained the creation of the foundation, who Norma Logan and Terri Brodeur were, and how their separate and ultimately fatal cancer stories led to the walk and fundraising effort, something ignited within me. As a rule, reporters do not get involved in their stories, but I was inspired to not only cover the new nonprofit and its first fundraising walk marathon, but to do the 26.2-mile walk myself and share my experience through stories with The Day’s readers. I asked my editor for permission, and she agreed. My hope was to inspire others to not only walk, but to donate, and for The Day’s readers to do whatever they could to make this new grassroots foundation doing yeoman’s work to raise cancer research funds a success. There is no doubt two decades later that the TBBCF has done what it promised and so much more. Many of the people I met doing the walk and writing those stories are still in my life and important to me. And every so often in my mind’s eye, I can vividly see that team of women that I crossed the marathon finish line with in October 2006 with blistered feet and exuberant expressions, and I never fail to smile.”

Pat and Lisa’s Walk efforts, the support and hard work of the original Foundation volunteer leaders, Becky Lillie, who was a major force in marketing and walker recruitment, and Ann’s enthusiasm covering the Walk inspired folks to be a part of the TBBCF mission, as imagined by Norma Logan.

Twenty years in, TBBCF does not quit. The inspiration for that? 

“Norma never quit,” Sandy said, “Until she couldn’t do it anymore.”