COLLIERVILLE, Tenn. — Finding a parking space and making your way through traffic is expected to run a lot smoother for Saturday’s Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.
WREG is a proud sponsor of the annual event, being held for the second year in a row in Collierville.
More than 12,000 people are expected to participate in an event that brings cancer survivors, friends, and supporters together for a worthy cause.
“It’s huge, just huge. and it’s just such a great feeling to be a participant,” cancer survivor Becky Cook said.
Cook, from Cordova, signed up again this year for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.
It’s been her way of honoring friends who’ve had breast cancer.
But this year, she said there are new reasons to take part.
“I am a survivor myself now. So I am registering for myself and my daughter and granddaughters,” she said.
Friday morning at the Race for the Cure headquarters in Germantown, people were registering and getting their race numbers and t-shirts.
They were all eager to run or walk the 5k and help raise money for breast cancer patients in the Memphis area.
“We raise money for mammograms, for uninsured women, under insured women, right here at home,” Sara Thatcher, Race for the Cure chairman, said.
At the race site in Collierville, next to the Carriage Crossing Shopping Center, crews were busy setting up for Saturday’s big event.
Every effort has been made to eliminate the kind of traffic problems that caused some people to miss the start of the race in 2013.
For example, Houston Levee Road, off the 385 connector, will not be closed.
Thatcher believes this year’s event will go off without a hitch.
“The race will start at 9 a.m., but the Expo opens at 6:30 a.m. You definitely want to get there early. We have eight shuttle locations, we have three large parking lots. There’s going to be plenty of parking for everybody,” she said.
The changes will ensure first-time race runner Tasha Jones has a memorable run for a couple of special people.
“In honor of my aunt, who is a breast cancer survivor. My pastor’s mother is a breast cancer survivor,” she said.
You can register online till midnight Friday by going to komenmemphis.org, or you can register Saturday morning at the Carriage Crossing Shopping Center in Collierville.