LOXLEY, Ala. — “Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall, all you have to do is call and I’ll be there…yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ve got a friend.”

Those James Taylor lyrics describe perfectly the feelings of Angie Mimm’s friends as they gather on Saturday, March 26 at 9 a.m. at Loxley Elementary School to “Walk in Pink for Angie”.

This 2.2 mile walk will benefit Mimms, an office worker at Loxley Elementary, and her family in her battle against breast cancer and will begin at the football field behind the school and continue through town. It will end up back at the school where there will be a picnic lunch and a celebration for Mimms where 300 pink balloons will be released.

“This will be like a mini Relay for Life and we have 15 teams of people including 13 teams from the Baldwin County Board of Education and teams from Elsanor Elementary, Loxley Elementary and Ace Distributing. Each member of the team had to raise a minimum of $100 and all the money raised will go toward medical expenses not covered by insurance,” said Shelly Allen, one of the coordinators of the event and Mimm’s friend.

Registration will be available on Saturday and donations of any amount will be accepted as well. “You don’t have to participate in the walk to donate but we would love to see as many people as possible come out to support Angie and her family,” Allen said.

Pink T-shirts will be on sale Saturday for $10 and “Cindy”, the pink fire truck from Orange Beach Professional Firefighters Association, will be on display for participants to see and sign.

Diagnosed three years ago, Mimms , who lives in Seminole and transferred to LES two years ago from Elsanor Elementary School, has been through numerous rounds of chemotherapy and radiation on and off for the past two years and despite the aggressiveness of the disease, Allen said Mimms continues to be positive.

“She comes to work everyday and smiles and never complains. She has been doing radiation every afternoon for seven weeks. She goes to her appointment and then comes back to school. She’s amazing, She has to have a bone scan every three months and is such a trooper,” Allen said.

Her positive attitude is because of her faith in God and the support of her family. “She had told us many times this (LES) is where God wanted her and you could not find a more godly person than Angie. She is sweet, sweet, sweet and full of faith. She loves being here and we love having her here. She has a great family too. Her husband, Joel and kids, Erica, 16 and Clint, 14, have been so supportive of her through all this,” Allen said.

Ortiginally from north Alabama, Allen said Mimm’s mom and sister are going to come into towm for the race to support her and also Mimms church family at Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in Fairhope has been there for her too.

Support from the school and the community has been tremendous, Allen said, with the teams finding lots of unique ways to raise money for Mimms.

“Some classes have sold donuts, others have had yard sales and sold “Walk in Pink for Angie” t-shirts and one class sold teddy bears for St. Patrick’s Day. We also sold snowcones and allowed the students to wear pink on Friday for $1,” Allen said.

In the planning stages for about a month and half, Allen said they came up with the idea because they had another teacher who died of cancer and they didn’t do anything for them and wanted to do something for Mimms.

Food and drink donations are still being accepted for the celebration lunch after the walk and can be dropped off at Loxley Elementary School, Allen said.

An account for Mimms has been set up at Regions Bank and anyone desiring to make a donation can make their check payable to “Angie Mimms Benefit Fund” or can drop off their donation at Loxley Elementary School, Allen said. For more information, contact LES at (251) 964-5334.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States other than skin cancer and the second leading cause of death, according to the American Cancer Society, and in 2010 about 207,090 new cases were found.

The five-year survival rate depends on the stage of the cancer when diagnosed, with stage one having an 88 percent rate while stage four has a 15 percent rate overall but each woman is different and some women beat the odds and live very full and productive lives far beyond the fiver year rate.

The key to prevention and early diagnosis is getting a mammogram if you are 40 or over and doing self-exams monthly, according to the ACS website.

Other tests beside a mammogram include a bone scan (to see if it has spread to bones), CT scan (looks at organs), MRI (looks at brain and spine), Ultrasound (looks at other organs), and PET Scan (sugar goes into vein and attracts cancer cells to determine where cancer has spread).

Determining the stage of breast cancer is based on the tumor size and speed of growth, whether the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes and the speed it might have spread to other organs.

Options for treatment once diagnosed are either surgery, chemotherapy or radiation. Surgery can involve removal or the tumor and/or removal of one or both breasts. Radiation could take place one month after surgery and occur five days a week for six weeks as an outpatient. Chemotherapy could involve drops put into the vein, given as a shot, taken as a pill or liquid.

Chemo is given in cycles with a two to three week rest period that could last for three to six months. Side effects can be harsh in nature and involve hair loss, mouth sores, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, higher risk of infection, fatigue and easy bruising and bleeding.

For more information about breast cancer from the American Cancer Society, visit www.cancer.org.