When Vicksburg resident Brittany Blackledge learned a co-worker had breast cancer, she and several of her friends decided to take a walk.

In mid-October, Blackledge, 24, a Vicksburg native, and four of her friends, including the co-worker with cancer, will go to Atlanta and walk 60 miles over three days in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk to raise awareness for breast cancer.

Founded in 1982, Susan G. Komen for the Cure is an organization devoted to breast cancer awareness and research to find a cure. The organization is named for Komen, who died of breast cancer.

“I got the idea to do this as a way to support my co-worker,” Blackledge said as she sat under a canopy at the Vicksburg Farmers’ Market Saturday morning. Her efforts raised $85 toward her $2,300 entry fee.

The three-day walk is Oct. 19-21.

“We’ll walk through downtown Atlanta, doing 20 miles a day to raise awareness for breast cancer,” she said. “We’ll all stay and eat together in a designated area. In the evening, we’ll talk with breast cancer survivors and women who are patients and hear their stories.”

Blackledge said the idea of walking for breast cancer awareness came while she was a student at Mississippi State University, “but I didn’t have the support,” she said. “I had done the 5K walk in Jackson, and the president of our company suggested we go to the national in Atlanta.”

Blackledge is a civil engineer for Pritchett Engineering and Planning, a women-owned company in Flowood. Her team is called the “Pink Roadrunners.” The money she’s raised goes only to her individual entry fee.

“Each participant has to raise $2,300,” said Blackledge’s friend and co-worker Christin Matthews, another Vicksburg resident. Matthews is not a member of the walking team, but was at the market Saturday to help her friend.

“This is our first fundraiser like this,” she said. “We’ve been doing most of our fundraising through Facebook. So far, we’ve raised (collectively) a total of $1,700.” Until Saturday, Blackledge had raised $850.

Saturday morning, the women sat under their canopy with a table of pink fortune and Oreo cookies with a small glass bowl for donations.

Matthews said the idea for the cookies “was to have something different” as she support her co-worker with cancer, whom she declines to identify.

As Blackledge and Matthews were talking, a woman walked by and asked, “how much are the cookies?”

“They have no price,” Blackledge said. “If you make a donation, you get a cookie. You can donate whatever you want.”

The woman put a dollar in the bowl and walked off. Blackledge said Saturday afternoon that the woman’s response was a common one.

“We had people just come up and make a donation and not take anything,” she said. “I appreciated that very much.”