NEAH BAY –– Dozens of teams competed this weekend in the fifth annual Team Lynn 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament to once again help provide a boost to cancer research.
Organized by Sharon Kanichy in honor of her mother, Lynn Critter, the tournament at the Makah Community Gym drew players from the Makah reservation and beyond Saturday and Sunday to help send Kanichy to walk in the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s three-day, 60-mile walk for breast cancer for the fifth year.
Critter died of breast cancer at the age of 55 on July 19, 2006.
As much as it was a fundraiser, Kanichy said she and her family members also staged the tournament as a way to continue the cancer education effort her mother launched after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I always called her the proud poster child,” Kanichy said.
“It was really important to mom to get people information about breast cancer.”
Critter worked as an administrative assistant for the Makah Housing Authority.
She also was social services director of the Makah tribe and a social worker during the 1980s and ’90s.
“She always worked to help educate people,” Kanichy said. “She was very passionate about that.”
Saturday saw competition between men’s and women’s teams.
Sunday’s edition included adult co-ed teams and youth squads.
Special T-shirts given to tournament participants list the names of dozens of Makah tribal members who have been stricken with cancer — both those who have died and survivors.
“It’s something that has a lot of impact here,” Kanichy said of cancer.
Kanichy and family members have attended Komen walks in Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco.
This year, they will participate in the Komen foundation’s walk in suburban Detroit on Aug. 15-17.
Each participant in the walk is required to raise at least $2,300.
Through the basketball tournament, in which each player pays $10 to participate, and an accompanying breakfast, Kanichy raised $1,443.64 last year.
Kanichy did not as of Sunday how much this year’s tournament raised.
For more information or to donate, visit the Team Lynn Facebook page at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-teamlynn or phone Kanichy at 360-640-1382.
Seventy-five percent of the net proceeds raised by the three-day walk support the Komen Foundation research and training grant program and large public health outreach programs for women and men facing breast cancer.
The remaining 25 percent helps fund local community and affiliate support and outreach programs, according to the walk’s website, www.the3day.org.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at jsmillie@peninsuladailynews.com.
