Photos courtesy of Piedmont Augusta Foundation
Twenty-five years ago, Queenie Jones saw an opportunity for a miracle.
Jones was a nurse practitioner turned human resources professional overseeing health services for 600 employees at a manufacturing facility on South Augusta’s Marvin Griffin Road — dubbed “The Miracle Mile” back in the ‘60s for its success in attracting industry. She also served on what was then known as the University Health Care Foundation board — now the Piedmont Augusta Foundation — focusing on health care prevention and community outreach.
Jones was concerned about her female temporary workers and others in the community who didn’t have health insurance, didn’t qualify for paid time off, or were financially unable to afford their important annual mammograms. So, Jones wondered: “What can we do about this?
Her idea was a fundraiser — a walk on “The Miracle Mile” — to help raise awareness and funds for a mobile mammography unit providing mammograms for women regardless of their ability to pay.
Amy Dorrill, then development director at the foundation, and Pam Anderson, a registered nurse who had just joined the hospital’s Breast Health Center, were all in to make it happen, as were the Pink Magnolias, a support group for women with breast cancer. For Anderson, who had been treated for breast cancer just three years prior, her passion for the idea was simple: “It was because women weren’t getting mammograms,” she says. “We couldn’t continue having women diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer. Screening was the key.”
Roughly 100 people walked in the first-ever Miracle Mile Walk on Marvin Griffin Road, raising $3,000. E-Z-GO and McDonald’s were early partners, and the excitement of the “sea of pink” walkers was contagious. By year three, the walk had moved to downtown Augusta and was raising 10 times its original amount — and organizers were able to put the mobile mammography unit into service.
Twenty-five years later, the unit has been replaced twice, and since its inception, it has logged more than 300,000 miles across a 25-county region, performing more than 90,000 mammograms and diagnosing 404 cases of breast cancer.
And the walk has continued to grow, now raising at least 100 times its original amount. Those funds continue to be used to cover screenings on the mobile unit and within the Randy W. Cooper, M.D., Center for Breast Health Services for under- and uninsured women.
For Dr. Randy W. Cooper, a surgical oncologist at Piedmont Augusta who helped open the Breast Health Center along with Anderson — and who usually offers opening remarks and a prayer at the walk — the impact is undeniable. “When we started out, it was amazing how few people in the community got a mammogram,” he says. “Every chance we got, we put on a full-court press [sharing the importance of screening]. Of course, the Miracle Mile Walk was a pretty good advertisement for it. Survivors would tell their friends they hadn’t had a mammogram in two years, but ‘they found my cancer, so you need to get your mammogram.’”
Survivor Corinne Baldwin recalls that about 15 years ago, she scheduled a routine mammogram at the mobile van, primarily for its convenience. That screening diagnosed her with triple-positive stage 2 breast cancer. Every year since, she’s made a point of walking in the event, and she continues to give back by providing care packages to women undergoing cancer treatment at Piedmont Augusta. “The walk is important,” she says, “so women can feel that they are not alone. And the money raised helps women get mammograms if they need financial assistance.”
The walk also wouldn’t happen without volunteer help. Nearly 250 volunteers work the walk, which usually attracts at least 10,000 participants.
“We volunteer because we realized breast cancer will touch everyone. It may be your mother, your wife, your sister,” says Bill Jenks, who, along with his wife, Terri, has been volunteering at the walk for more than 20 years. Adds Terri, “Because I had my mammogram two years ago, my husband’s wife is a survivor, my sons’ mother is a survivor, my mother’s daughter is a survivor and my brothers’ sister is a survivor.”
“This event has deep roots in the community, and people just can’t wait to participate in it,” says Anne Catherine Murray, executive director of philanthropy at the Piedmont Augusta Foundation. “Every single person in this community has had their lives touched by breast cancer in some way or another, which tells us we need to keep fundraising to help make sure everyone has access to screening.”
Jones adds, “Cancer is not selective. Early detection is the best protection.”
The Piedmont Augusta Foundation’s 25th anniversary Miracle Mile Walk is a three-mile fun walk taking place at the Augusta Common and Reynolds Street on Saturday, October 18, 7:30-11 a.m. A drop-in celebratory event — honoring the walk’s founders, caregivers, and patients and survivors of breast cancer — is Thursday, October 9, 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Breast Health Center.
For more information or to register, visit themiraclemilewalk.org.
As seen in the October 2025 issue of Augusta magazine.
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