SEYMOUR — Seymour Pink’s mission to raise awareness of breast cancer — and funds to fight it — is about to reach new heights, thanks to a former town resident who now calls Alaska home.
Joe Bellavance, a Seymour native who moved to Alaska in 2018, has assembled a hiking team and on Aug. 15 will climb to the top of Matanuska Peak in Palmer, Alaska, and plant the Seymour Pink flag at the summit.
“I decided to try something like this because Alaska afforded me the opportunity to experience and share its beauty with all, and I thought that this represented a good way to channel that positive energy into something productive and meaningful,” Bellevance said. “Seymour Pink immediately resonated with me as a wonderful avenue to pursue that.”
Bellavance has many reasons to support the cause, and has been personally touched by the disease. His mother, Linda Bellavace, a longtime employee of the Seymour school system, is a breast cancer survivor.
Bellavance reached out to Seymour Pink founder and President Mary Deming with his idea to scale a majestic mountain in the name of the charitable organization. Bellavance is a former student of Deming, who taught at Seymour High School for 36 years before retiring.
“When he told me what he wanted to do I was like, ‘that is so cool,’” Deming said. “I’d been in Alaska on a cruise, so I knew just how beautiful Alaska was with its snow-capped mountains. To climb one of those mountain peaks in the name of Seymour Pink, and put our Seymour Pink flag on the top of the mountain ... it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Deming created the nonprofit in 2009, having lost her own mother to the diseases. To date, more than $2.5 million has been raised for research and to financially aid survivors.
Bellavance’s “Team Seymour Pink Adventure” will include some of the friends and fellow hikers he made since moving to Alaska. On Aug. 15, the team will hike 10 miles to the top of Matanuska Peak, which stands more than 6,000 feet high and is one of the most recognizable peaks in the lower Mat-Su Valley. The team, decked out in Seymour Pink gear, will plant the Seymour Pink flag — which Deming will supply — at the top.
Before the adventure begins, Bellavance is hopeful people can donate to support “The Breast Expedition” and help Seymour Pink in its ongoing battle against breast cancer. A goal of $5,000 has been set. More information is available at and to donate can be found online at https://bit.ly/3f5KfTB.
Deming is grateful to Bellavance, calling him “a very selfless young man who wanted no recognition, just exposure to raise as much money as possible for us.”
“When Joe and his team complete their climb and place our flag at the top of that peak it’ll symbolize the climb each and every breast cancer patient has to make,” Deming said
“The view from the top of that mountain is symbolic because nothing will be in his way at that point, and that to me is what it must be like when breast cancer patients finish their treatment and get to the top. ... Breast cancer is no longer in their way and the view from the top has to be splendid.”
As for Bellavance, he initially planned a three-year tour of Alaska, but after experiencing the last frontier, has no plan to leave.
“This is home now, but I brag about being from Connecticut to whomever I can,” he said.
jean.sos@snet.net
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