Annual Fundraiser Supports Women With Breast Cancer

MONTROSE – In 1988, Ouray native and owner of the Outlaw restaurant Chris Bonatti was diagnosed with breast cancer. This year, she will celebrate 20 cancer-free years, and she’ll do it amidst a flurry of pink feather boas and flamboyant costumes at the 16th Annual Bosom Buddies Walk/Run and Auction.

Though this year Bonatti will walk side-by-side with close to 1,000 women and men, in 1988, she was alone. Knowledge of the disease was not widespread, nor did Bonatti know of anyone else who’d fought it, much less survived. “There was no support; I was out there by myself,” Bonatti said.

When a girlfriend of hers was diagnosed a year and a half later, a woman who didn’t have health insurance and who struggled financially under the weight of her diagnosis, Bonatti founded a support group now known as Bosom Buddies to provide emotional support to women as well as to help raise money for women with breast cancer and their families. The movement was wildly successful, with almost 900 people walking and running in the 2007 event and the silent auction raising almost $60,000. The group continues to meet weekly, with seven to 15 women showing up at the Wednesday meetings, as well as the occasional man who has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

All the money they raise stays in the region, Bonatti said – Ouray, Montrose, Grand Junction, Gunnison, Durango – and goes to assist low-income women who have breast cancer as well as their families. “We give scholarships to kids whose mothers have been diagnosed with breast cancer,” she said proudly. “It’s been a wonderful group of women and a support system for people in those counties. It’s a far-reaching little thing that we do.”

Cancer survivor and group member Phyllis Wiesner said that though the group remains strong, one thing that has changed has been the age of its members: they are younger than they were in the past.

“It’s kind of disconcerting because it hasn’t been impressed upon younger women to get checked,” she said.

This year’s auction takes place on Friday, Oct. 10 from 6-9 p.m. at the Montrose Holiday Inn Express and features items ranging from a pink cruiser bike (pink being the theme-color of breast cancer awareness) to a condo stay in Park City, Utah, to a weekend in Denver with theater tickets and a stay at the Brown Palace.

“We get quite a good participation from Ouray,” Wiesner said. “We really appreciate you guys.”

The 5K and 10K walk/run starts at the Montrose Pavilion at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 11 and circles through town to end up back at the Pavilion. Registration begins at 8 a.m. and the entry fee is $25.

“I used to think I never did anything important,” Bonatti told The Watch in an interview last year. “Then I look back at this group and I see how much difference it has made in people’s lives, and I feel good,” she said. “I want to be someone who makes a difference.”