My PINK Family

Hopefully you've enjoyed my past several posts about the Dallas 3 Day. (Maybe even enough to sign up to walk or volunteer one day?) As I bring things to a close I want to write a little bit about friendships.

Prior to me joining my 3 Day team, Angels for the Cure, I had never been a part of an organized team before. I didn't play sports in high school or college and my team participation has been limited to corporate America. When I joined the Angels in 2009, I never imagined the genuine friendships that I would make. And I never thought about the PINK family that I would be joining with other 3 Day participants.

I’m sure you've all heard about Superstorm Sandy that made landfall last week. I work for an insurance company with their catastrophe response division and my scheduled time off for the Dallas 3 Day was in jeopardy of being cancelled. In the end everything worked to my advantage and I was able to keep my scheduled time off. Although it’s probably hard to understand, I know that I would have been heartbroken had I not been able to be at the 3 Day this past weekend. I really wanted to be there for my team mates knowing how hard they had trained for the event, and to be able to give them the support that they needed.

Over the past few years, I have been able to meet more of my PINK family through Facebook and Twitter. I’ll be the first to admit that I was a bit hesitant to ‘friend’ people who I didn’t actually know. But the commonality that we all share is our passion to find a cure for breast cancer (which will lead to a cure for other cancers).

While at the event I had the chance to finally meet the following people:

·         

      Mark – Mark and I first connected on Facebook through pictures that he took during the Dallas 3 Day a year or two ago. Over the past year we started following one another on Twitter. And we were finally able to meet on Day 1 of the walk! Mark's wife is also a Survivor.

Me and Mark at Opening Ceremony

·         D’Lyn – D’Lyn and I first connected over Twitter. She is a member of Team Tiara and they were promoting a website called Pinktober365.com. The focus is that breast cancer isn't just the month of October and that it is every day of the year. D'Lyn also lost her mother to breast cancer. I ended up submitting my PINK story which lead me to be connected to…

Me and D'Lyn

·         Mike – Mike and I are very recent Twitter followers. Although Mike read my story on Pinktober365 and made a donation to my 3 Day account earlier this year. It wasn’t until we connected on Twitter that I put two and two together. (And on a side note, Mike made a commitment to donate to 100 walkers this year…WOW!!!)

·         Betsy – Betsy and I are also Twitter followers. And at the last minute I realized that she was in Dallas as a crew member for the 3 Day. So on the final day of the event I stopped by the pit stop she was crewing at so we could meet face to face.

·         Jay – Jay and I are Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare friends.To be honest, I can’t remember which came first or how any of it came to be. Jay and I first met face to face in DC about a month ago when I walked there. He wasn’t hard to find since he wears a pink construction hat. What I didn’t realize is that he was going to be at the Dallas 3 Day….in disguise! Jay a.k.a. Pink Man Walking walked the event in a motorcycle helmet and didn’t unveil himself until he walked into holding at the end of the walk. If I had been a bit smarter I should have figured all of this out when he took my picture at Camp on Friday night and posted it to my Facebook page!

Jay a.k.. Pink Man Walking

Believe me, I have definitely come out of my social media shell. And since I took a lot of pictures during the 3 Day and posted them to the Dallas 3 Day Facebook page, I have made some more new friends!

And just in case any of you are interested in even more random things from me, you can find me on Facebook (Shannon Underwood), Twitter (indygirl_1997) or Foursquare (indygirl_1997).