JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Thousands of people dressed in pink gathered in downtown Jacksonville on Saturday for the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk, honoring survivors and raising money for breast cancer research and patient services.<\/p>\n
More than 13,000 people turned out at VyStar Ballpark for this year\u2019s three-mile walk, which started at Georgia and Duval streets. Participants raised roughly $390,000 for breast cancer research.<\/p>\n
Among them was 83-year-old Joane Pankey, a two-time cancer survivor, who danced to music along the route.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a stone-cold survivor. And I believe you can heal,\u201d Pankey said.<\/p>\n
Pankey said hearing a cancer diagnosis can be scary, but it\u2019s important to keep fighting.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cNo, you\u2019re not going to die. Take the treatments. Believe in God. Believe in yourself and you will live. Believe me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Kat Braswell, a recent breast cancer survivor, said events like the walk remind people with a diagnosis that they are not alone. They can also connect people to resources and support groups, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cDoing things like this, coming out to events like this just touches so many lives in countless ways,\u201d Braswell said.<\/p>\n The American Cancer Society estimates roughly 320,000 women have been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer this year.<\/p>\n Pankey said good support systems are in place for patients.<\/p>\n \u201cThey got stuff that\u2019s easier now than when I started out. And that was 40 years ago,\u201d Pankey said.<\/p>\n Those who could not attend the walk but want to donate can do so here<\/a>.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Thousands of people dressed in pink gathered in downtown Jacksonville on Saturday for the Making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9286,7840,969,116,118,117,6492,173036,634,173035,115,22300,93063,173037],"class_list":["post-444092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-ben","tag-ben_becker","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jessica","tag-jessica_zellinis","tag-local","tag-making_strides_against_breast_cancer_walk","tag-news","tag-peak","tag-salinas","tag-vice_star_ballpark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}