Friends race for cure after 24 years

By Wendy Anderson
Special to the Pioneer Times
    Sonja Hansen Sawyer, a 42 year old single mother, recently became the inspiration for her fellow classmates to join a world-wide campaign to fight breast cancer. What started as a small reunion became an unforgettable commemoration for 17 alumni of Katahdin High School, in Stacyville.
    Sonja Hansen is a 1985 graduate of Katahdin High School, and as most students do, she left the area to further her education. As life leads people their separate ways, one tends to lose track of their high school “chums.”
    Recently, after discovering each other on Facebook, Sonja and some others reconnected. Thus began a friendship that would bond them all for a lifetime. Sonja, then living in South Carolina with her 13-year-old son, announced to her friends that she was fighting a 4.5 year battle with breast cancer. She and her son shortly thereafter, relocated to Maine. And while everyone was tracking their journey online, the city of Bangor was preparing for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.
    While pondering Sonja’s circumstances, a friend asked others to join her in the upcoming walk in Sonja’s honor. Quickly everyone jumped on the bandwagon, and a team was born — Sonja’s Milkshakers. It was a team of 35 that included spouses, children and relatives; a team that raised over $5,000 and traveled from as far away as Los Angeles, California.
    On Sept. 19, the group met for the first time at the Muddy Rudder in Brewer. For some, it was more than 20 years that they had seen each other. The morning of the race dawned with sunshine and 5,000 plus people to support their loved ones.
Contributed photo
Friends of Sonja Hansen Sawyer  gathered in Bangor to run in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure this  past summer.
    Sonja met her teammates in a wheel chair with her son at the helm, and a smile as bright as the sunshine. The weekend was filled with hugs, laughter, tears and old friendships renewed. It was a long journey of an incredible individual who fights a daily battle with the largest sense of grit and determination. A journey that has brought her back to Maine, a place where she has finally come full circle — a place that she calls home.
    Sonja said, “What an amazing gift you all gave to me. What an honor it was to have this team of exceptional people named after me. What joy you all brought to me as I looked around and saw your faces filled with happiness, as you waited for the race to start. Someone commented to me on Facebook how they could see how much that day meant to everyone by the emotion on their faces.”