BOTHELL — QFC employee Julie Hull walked outside the Canyon Park store Friday afternoon to add fresh bundles of white, red, yellow and purple tulips to a floral display.
She smiled as she glanced over her shoulder at two men near the store’s entrance who were jogging on treadmills.
“It’s so awesome,” Hull said, her eyes tearing with emotion. “I admire these guys.”
Bothell firefighters Adam Lamb and Kirk Robinson are two of the participants in a 24-hour jogathon, which continues through noon today, to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Lamb, 46, an ultra-marathoner, said he planned to match the 16 to 17 hours he participated in the event last year. Beginning at a clip of 6 miles per hour, he said by the end of this year’s event, he expects to log 30 to 40 miles.
Robinson, 31, the event organizer, said he is participating in memory of his uncle, Sam Robinson, who died from leukemia in 1999.
Hull said the reason the fundraising event holds special emotion for her is that her son, Jordan Keen, now 18, underwent a bone marrow transplant to battle leukemia just before his 14th birthday on March 19, 2005. He’s now a senior at Bothell High School.
The man who ultimately provided the bone marrow donation was in the Army. He had been assigned to Fort Lewis in Pierce County in the late 1990s where he joined the national registry of potential bone marrow donors, she said.
Hull was just one of the people who stopped to talk to the firefighters whose lives had been affected by some form of cancer.
Among them was 10-year-old Brandon Brauns and his mother, Kris Brauns.
Lamb temporarily climbed off the treadmill and leaned down with his hands on his knees as he talked to Brandon.
After learning that the youngster was being treated for brain cancer at Children’s Hospital in Seattle, Lamb promised to bring a fire truck by their house. “We’ll even put the ladder up,” he said.
Lamb also invited Brandon and his mom to watch him and 1,500 others participating in the 18th annual stairclimb in Seattle on March 8, where firefighters race to the top of Columbia Center in full bunker gear. That event also benefits the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
“You see how it works?” Lamb said with a smile after Brandon and his mom walked away. “Who hasn’t been touched by cancer?
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486, salyer@heraldnet.com.
Jogathon
The 24-hour treadmill run by Bothell firefighters and emergency medical personnel to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society will continue through noon today at the QFC in Canyon Park, 22833 Bothell Everett Highway.
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