Bra chain record effort judged today
WOONSOC.ET The goal, the number needed to break a Guinness World Record for bras all strung together, was reached on Monday and so you could say the Athena’s Cub breast cancer awareness volunteers were really doing busy work at the River’s Edge Recreational Comple on Tuesday.
A reduced number of Jennifer Jolicoeur’s volunteers continued to count the campaign’s remaining bras from storage, while adding to the recorded number of bras topping the e isting record’s tally of a bra chain totaling 166,626 bras held by a group in Australia.
By the end of counting Tuesday evening, the Athena’s Cup World Record challenge had linked and measured 195,599 bras before calling it a day.
An official judge from the Guinness
Book of World Records organization is expected to visit Rivers Edge this morning and begin the process of certifying the volunteers’ work in setting a new record, Jolicoeur said at the complex Tuesday.
“Tomorrow is the day she comes to look at all the evidence and look at the chain and then she will present us with whatever it is,” Jolicoeur said.
The judge will be arriving at the complex at about 11 a.m. and will need about an hour-and-a-half to conduct the verification review, Jolicoeur added. The volunteers are expected to add a small number of additional bras when she arrives so that she will be able to see the full hooking and measuring process that was used in creating the more than 107-milelong chain of bras, Jolicoeur said.
“I feel a really sense of accomplishment and I feel very grateful to all the volunteers,” Jolicoeur said while noting Tuesday had been another busy day in the campaign she had started 10 years ago as a way to call attention to the fight against breast cancer, and what those who face the disease and their families experience because of it.
The campaign was founded when Jolicoeur, who operates Athena’s Home Novelties out of the city, had an employee in a fight with breast cancer, and the effort to break the world record also drew those who have faced breast cancer as patients and family members who carry on the fight.
Tammy Lamberto-Roy, who has been living with stage 4 breast cancer for the past six years, was among the volunteers working on the chain over the weekend and was back at Rivers Edge as the day’s counting and stringing ended with a round of cheers by those present.
“I knew they would make it because Jennifer said she had collected 200,000 bras for the challenge and now they are very close to reaching that,” Lamberto-Roy said.
Noting the thrill that had gone through the crowd of volunteers working on Monday when the record was topped, Lamberto-Roy credited Jolicoeur with seeing the campaign through to its conclusion.
“It’s so great. Everyone worked hard to break the record and they are still here helping because we are not done counting until tomorrow,” Lamberto-Roy said.
As for her own fight, Lamberto-Roy said she is feeling well as her treatment continues. “My last scan was stable and I’m just doing it,” she said.
“I’m still going, I feel great, and I have things to do,” Lamberto-Roy said of the time she is spending with her family and her daughter, Mia.
The Athena’s Cub challenge also drew Virginia Peloquin and William Dupre Sr., of Pawtucket to the chain assembly process and they worked together over the weekend with the other volunteers in the measuring department stringing out the groups of 10 bras each against a measuring line. On average the strings of bras ranged from 38 to 40 feet in length, and the couple had
Aerial photo by Joseph B. Nadeau
Photo by Joseph B. Nadeau to record that number before the string was sent on to be added the chain through a process that included the bras being walked by a group of independent officials and video recording equipment.
Peloquin noted her family has experienced breast cancer, her daughter Misty, her sister, Rosalie, and other family members in the past.
“It’s very important to me because breast cancer runs in my family and I’ve lost a lot family members and friends as well,” she said.
“Women in general have to deal with this and it is a hard thing to go through,” Peloquin said.
It helps, she added, to work on something like the Athena’s Cup awareness campaign, she said.
“It’s a very good cause and it is very important to me,” she said.
Jolicoeur’s mother-inlaw,” Mary Ann Jolicoeur, was helping out with the effort as was her mother, Audrey Lambert, and many other members of her family and group of friends.
“Everybody who is here has been helping because we’re all making a difference,” Jolicoeur said.
Lambert held a similar view of what has been taking place at Woonsocket’s Rivers Edge Complex.
“It is amazing how many people have come out and how they are all getting along and helping one another,” Lambert said. “They are handling all the different tasks and we are going to reach that milestone and break the record,” she said. “But most important thing is that we are raising awareness about breast cancer. That is why we are doing this,” Audrey Lambert said.
After the judge is done with Guinness’ formal review of the volunteers’ work on Wednesday, Jolicoeur said it will then be decided as to what happens to the bra chain.
The group had pulled out some never-used and stilltagged garments to donate to women’s shelters rather than add them to the chain, and those are likely to be the only ones saved.
The rest that have been spread out on the ground will likely have to be recycled or disposed of in some way, she said.
“We are still talking with the city about what is going to happen to the bras and a few interesting ideas have been raised,” Jolicoeur said while adding no decisions had been made as of Tuesday.
More information the Athena’s Cup fight against breast cancer can be found at Athena’s Cup.org.