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Greensboro resident Paula Trivette and her friends walked 60 miles to raise money for cancer research in 2007.

This year, the trek will become a family affair.

Trivette and her eight sisters and four nieces will all travel to Chicago this weekend to participate in the Breast Cancer 3-Day walk benefiting the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Nancy Brinker created the foundation in 1982 in memory of her sister, Susan Komen, who died after a three-year battle with cancer.

"The Komen foundation sends you a training schedule that you do before the walk to prepare," Trivette said. "You are supposed to walk so many miles four days and cross train one day and get two days off."

Trivette walked in October to support her friend Lynn Smith, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

"My friends and I called ourselves the Laker Girls, because we traveled to Smith Mountain Lake, where Lynn had a house, and we'd all hang out," she said.

Trivette said after Smith sold the lake house, the group didn't get together as much - until they decided to do the fundraiser walk.

"When I found out I had to walk 60 miles, I was worried. Sure, I do exercise, and I was in the Army for 23 years, but that is a lot of walking," said Trivette, a nurse at Moses Cone Hospital.

The 60 miles will be completed over three days, with 20 miles each day.

Participation in the walk also meant Trivette would have to raise $2,200 - a feat that wasn't too hard with her network of friends and family.

Trivette has 16 living siblings - eight sisters and eight brothers.

Before the 2007 walk, Trivette, who had registered in a national bone marrow drive, learned she was a perfect match for a stranger who had leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant.

"I was so happy I was able to help someone. I donated 20 million stem cells after coming back from the trip," she said.

The news that she was able to help someone who needed the transplant gave her even more incentive to complete the walk.

"Over the three days, you laugh, you cry and you make some new friends," she said. "Last year, there were 2,800 walkers. We all slept in two-person pink tents. It was an incredible sight as you looked out and saw 1,400 pink tents."

For Trivette, it only seemed right to get her sisters involved in the 2008 walk, especially because two - Chris March and Marcia Zellmer - are cancer survivors. Zellmer has been cancer-free for 20 years.

"Chris was diagnosed seven years ago and had a mastectomy on her left breast. Then, she had a recurrence and had to have a mastectomy on the right side," Trivette said.

Trivette said she hopes that March's oncologist will hold off radiation treatment long enough for her to travel with the group, even though she won't be able to walk the 60 miles.

Trivette's team members have raised $33,500, exceeding their $26,400 fundraising goal, and have come up with a theme for decorating their pink tents.

Trivette said she expanded on March's idea to do a maypole, which is a tall, wooden pole with several ribbons tied at the top that hang to the ground.

"I wrote a poem titled 'May You Have,' and each line of the poem will be represented on each of the tents," Trivette said.

The lines of the poem are meant to encourage, each one starting with "May you have" and closing with positive words and phrases, such as shining stars, joy, cheerful smiles and fresh-cut flowers.

Trivette said it is her hope that one day the world will have a cure for cancer.

"Because everyone deserves a lifetime - that is one of the reasons for the walk. We're doing this to one day find a cure."

Contact Adria Hairston at 883-4422, Ext. 244, or adria.hairston@news-record.com