Atlanta, September 29, 2005 – Faculty, staff and students at Morehouse College will lace-up their walking shoes to stomp out breast cancer and help find a cure. The 6th annual 2K walk was founded by staff-member Sandra Walker, after she and two other Morehouse staff-members were diagnosed with the disease.

“I was diagnosed with breast cancer in October, 1999,” said Walker. “Chandra Price, for whom the walk is dedicated, Mary Peaks and I had been diagnosed within a three-year period and I wanted to do something to inform the community and the Morehouse College family about the rising number of minorities who are affected with the disease.”

Since its founding, the Morehouse College Breast Cancer Walk has raised more than $67,300 for the American Cancer Society to help with education and research for the disease that affects more than just women.

“The number of men who are diagnosed increases each year,” said Walker. “More whites are diagnosed, but African Americans have the largest number of deaths from breast cancer, as well as all cancer,” Walker said.

This year, more than 400 people are expected to participate in the 2K walk, which begins at 8 a.m. at the Martin Luther King International Chapel.

Registration for the walk is $20 (includes t-shirt). To register, contact Sandra Walker at (404) 215-2675.

WHO: Morehouse College

WHAT: 6th Annual Breast Cancer Awareness Walk

WHERE: Start/Finish: Martin Luther King Jr.
International Chapel, Morehouse College campus

WHEN: Saturday, October 1, 2005, 8 a.m.

Ranked three times as the number one college in the nation for educating African American students by Black Enterprise magazine, and recognized by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top feeder schools for the 15 most prominent graduate and professional schools in the country, Morehouse College is the nation’s largest, private liberal arts college for men. Founded in 1867, the College enrolls approximately 3,000 students and confers bachelor’s degrees on more black men than any other institution in the world.
Prominent alumni include Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize laureate and civil rights leader; Dr. David Satcher, former U.S. Surgeon General and director of the National Center for Primary Care at the Morehouse School of Medicine; Sheldon “Spike” Lee, filmmaker and president of 40 Acres & A Mule Productions; Maynard H. Jackson, founder of Jackson Securities and the first African-American mayor of Atlanta; and Nima A. Warfield, the first African-American Rhodes Scholar from an Historically Black College or University.