As a sophomore, now junior Catherine Murphy started Pounding the Pavement for Paula for her service project in Ms. Lee Tobey’s US History I class. On Sunday, May 19, Murphy held the second annual race at the Swan Pound Club House in Walpole. Unlike most students who make their project a one-time event, Murphy chose to make her project an annual race in honor of her grandmother, who lost an 11 month battle with pancreatic cancer just a few weeks before the first race in 2012. The head of the research team for pancreatic cancer at Dana Farber is Dr. Wolpin, who was Catherine’s grandmother’s doctor, and all proceeds of the race go directly to his team.
Last year, Murphy raised $8400, and she attrivbuted this to both corporate sponsors and donations from friends and family in honor of her grandmother. A decent amount of the donations came from co-workers of her grandmother and others who knew her grandmother. The race came together in 13 weeks last year, but this year she started planning the race earlier. In February she started to get the permit to hold the event and started getting donations. Some of the work Murphy has had to do prior the race is order tee-shirts, bib numbers, make flyers and registration forms and get supplies and decorations. Although she worked alone this year without her group members from the original project—senior Astrid Warny and junior Pat Connell—the planning was not difficult. Murphy said, “I do almost all of the planning by myself, then delegate things for my parents to help with; my mom is in charge of raffles and organizing food the day of the event and my dad helps with money and getting things we need. A lot goes into the race and it’s a lot of work every day, but it’s worth it to help support research for a cure.”
The course is approximately 2.5 miles long, and participants can either walk or run. Registration for the race cost $15 and the first 125 people to register received a free Tee-shirt. Registration the day of began at 10:45, followed by the runners’ race at 12 and then the walkers’ race at 12:10. Following the race, the there was a reception in the club house that included both refreshments and raffles.
This year, the race raised $34oo with a turn out of about 100 people. Alumni Feast Conley won the race with his cousin Tim Conley coming in behind him for second place. Mr. Richard Sturges, Spanish teacher at Walpole High School, finished in fourth place.
“Even though we did not raise as much as last year it was definitely easier to do everything a second time and it was a lot more fun this year”, Murphy said. She hopes to get more people involved in the years to come and continually improve the outcome and how much they are able to raise for Dana Faber. Murphy looks forward to organizing the race again next year and hopes each year the race continues to improve.
