Just because the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s 3 Day Walk for the Cure in Seattle has come and gone, that doesn’t mean Tina McDonough quits working to raise money to find a cure for breast cancer.
McDonough, along with her husband Cory, own One.7, Inc., an environmental equipment and street maintenance dealership in Ravensdale. This year marks the fourth the McDonoughs have pinked out one of the machines One.7 offers — this year a Vactor 2100 combination sewer cleaner — and sold it to donate a portion of the proceeds to the Komen Foundation.
A truck came to pick it up from the One.7 shop Nov. 13. The Vactor 2100 was covered in pink ribbons, the symbol for breast cancer awareness, as well as McDonough’s 3 Day team’s Valley Girls & Guys logo, and even a specially-made 1,000-foot pink Piranaha Hose Products high-pressure sewer hose mounted on the front of the truck — the hose was donated by Piranha after they let Tina McDonough pick out the color. She said it was the first time they made a hose in that color.
“When Tina called to ask if Vactor Manufacturing would support One.7, Inc’s, plan to (detail) a used Vactor truck for the Susan G. Komen event, I was very interested,” said Sam Miceli, the general manager of Vactor, in a statement. “As Tina expanded on her ideas, the excitement and passion in her voice convinced me that Vactor had to participate in the opportunity.”
Parts started arriving at the One.7 shop shortly after that conversation, McDonough said. A significant portion of the items used on the truck were donated.
In the past, three other machines were auctioned off, but this year Tina and Cory McDonough decided to sell the Vactor 2100 then donate a portion of the proceeds.
A Canadian company purchased the truck, which was displayed at Marymoor Park in Redmond where walkers could see it as they completed the Seattle 3 Day in mid-September,
“Our company donated 20 percent of the sale (of the truck) which equals $33,000,” McDonough wrote in an email. “With that $33,000, the $10,000 from the Good Neighbor Award and the $28,480.18 (donated by) Trapper’s Sushi we have broken the $1.5 million mark.”
In six years, the Valley Girls and Guys team raised $1,561,859 and change.
Pick up of the Vactor 2100 truck happened the day before McDonough flew out to San Diego with nine others to participate in that city’s 3 Day Walk. It was her 10th walk.
This is a cause which has transformed McDonough’s life and many others as they have joined her in the fight. It began in 2007 when she and three others did the walk for the first time in honor of her friend, Michelle, who lost the battle with breast cancer.
Before she finished the 3 Day Walk in Seattle in September, a number of people signed up to walk next year, new and returners.
McDonough will continue to work to find a cure, whether that’s walking 60 miles in three days, refurbishing and detailing in pink trucks, hosting events, finding sponsors or earning recognition from her professional peers.
She said she won’t quit until breast cancer is nothing more than a bad memory.
