East Valley pub crawl raises money and awareness for breast cancer survivors

A Valley business owner is advocating for people diagnosed with breast cancer in a unique way – and it’s really making everyone say “Cheers!”

Don’t be surprised if you spot a sea of ​​pink in Chandler this weekend.

“It’s like a big wave of pink people crawling from bar to bar,” explains Darwin Wall, broker at Darwin Wall Team and founder of Save Second Base Pub Crawl.

“I wanted to give back to the community, but do something fun,” Wall said.

And it also has a purpose: to advocate for women in the Valley suffering from breast cancer.

“I hope it makes a big difference. I feel like it is. The costs are high. Insurance doesn’t cover much. They always seem super grateful.”

Gretchen Weidman emailed the ABC15 Newsroom to inform us of this event. She is the 2024 award winner.

Weidman admits she went ten years without a mammogram. As a single mother and full-time hairdresser, it’s not always easy to put yourself first – and many women can relate to that.

“It was really hard,” Weidman explains of the diagnosis. “Your mind goes through it all like a movie – it fast forwards super fast and you think about what it would look like to get really sick.”

Weidman was diagnosed with stage I breast cancer, but it had already spread to some lymph nodes. She would undergo surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

Weidman admits that what scared her most was hair loss and the intensity of the chemo drugs.

And in what is known in the hairdressing world only as “shear Act of Bravery,” Weidman documented every step of the process of bravely saying goodbye to her hair.

“I had no idea that I had a really nice scalp underneath, and when that happened I thought, ‘I really like you without hair’… I had to realize that if I had, it wouldn’t have made me happy .” Hair or not.

And she didn’t beat cancer either.

Since it’s been a year since Weidman was diagnosed, the bar crawl is a chance for her to celebrate how far she’s come.

“It gives me time to celebrate with people and say, ‘I don’t have this anymore and that I can let it go and be really happy that I’m over it now!'”

If you would like to attend the 11th^Th The annual Save Second Base Pub Crawl takes place this Saturday, October 19th in downtown Chandler. It lasts from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. For more information, visit SaveSecondBasePubCrawl.com.

Save second base