Race For the Cure® Overview

The first SW Michigan Komen Race for the Cure® event took place in 1996 in Battle Creek and has been held every year since then except for 2004 when the Race took 18 months off to plan it’s relocation to Kalamazoo. The Race is the signature event for the Komen SW Michigan Affiliate and is organized by a large committee of volunteers. After just one year the move has proven to be very successful as participant numbers and money raised has increased. Along with these factors the most important increase has been awareness for the fight against breast cancer.

The SW Michigan Race is one of over 112 Komen Race for the Cure Events held in either the US or overseas. Each Race and affiliate keeps 75% of the money they raise to fund local programs for local women and their families. All Komen Race for the Cure events include a 5K run and a 5K Walk and most have special Survivor Recognition ceremonies to honor the many breast cancer survivors who come out to participate.

Participants in the Komen SW Michigan Race for the Cure® include individual runners and walkers along with many teams of family members, co-workers, neighbors, friends and even breast cancer survivor support groups. In fact the teams account for a large percentage of the participants. A large part of our Race is the Pledge program which helps us to raise a considerable amount of our funds which in turn helps the affiliate fund more programs on the local level.