BROOKVILLE — The Brookville Local School District parking lot was filled with people eager to participate in the 14th annual 5K walk to benefit the Pink Ribbon Girls organization.

Gale Colston, organizer of the event, thanked everyone who showed up to participate in the walk.

“I wanted to let you know because of people like you and the sponsors that are here, we have raised close to $750,000. We are hoping to add more to that today,’ Colston said.

Colston said plans were to once again include the block party that was added to last year’s event.

But Colston said unplanned circumstances led to the cancellation of the block party for this year.

“When we went to put the event together this year, we quickly realized that things were just not in place 100 percent to do the block party that we did last year,” Colston said.

Colston explained the loss of two key people played a role in canceling the block party.

Colston said one of those individuals is Margaret “Peg” Missimer, retired director of independent Living at Brookhaven Community Retirement Community, who died April 21, 2023.

Missimer was an avid Pink Ribbon Girls supporter and highly involved in the organization’s activities.

“The Brookhaven team is here. Even this year (after her death) they continued with their annual softball tournament and they brought us an additional $4,500 in her name,” Colston said.

Colston said the other significant individual the organization lost was Ryan Price, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack on Jan. 29, 2023.

“Ryan was an extremely close friend with my son and family. He was an unbelievable person in Brookville,” Colston said.

Colston said Ryan was the director of the organization’s cornhole tournament.

“The thing you don’t realize is Ryan has raised money for PRG (Pink Ribbon Girls), coordinating the cornhole tournament for well over five or six years,” Colston said.

“So when we didn’t have Ryan to run our tournament, we decided we were going to step back and go back to our core event, which is what we did,” Colston continued.

Colston, however, said this is the last year for the walking event.

“With a sadness, I do have to tell you this is the last walk,” Colston said.

“So, if you have been here one year or you have been here 14 years, I want to thank you again,” Colston said.

Colston emphasized ending the walking event won’t be the end of fundraising for the Pink ribbon Girls.

“Just know we are going to do something else,” Colston said.

“It’s just time to change it up because we see the numbers kind of dwindling with the walk and we think people just want to do something different,” Colston added.

Pink Ribbon Girl Community Engagement Coordinator Cara Salazar expressed her thanks for the support of the organization.

“I’m so thankful I get to be here. It truly is like family. It feels like home. I’m so glad we are part of it,” Salazar said.

“I’m also so glad we are the beneficiary of this event. I am thankful for all you have done for us,” Salazar continued.

According to the Pink Ribbon Girls website, the organization “provides meals, transportation, housecleaning and peer support free of charge to breast cancer or gynecological cancer patients at their time of greatest need.”

Reach Terry Baver at [email protected].