Photo courtesy of Craig O’Brien, Jump for the Cause 2005

Some of my, and my family’s, good friends are in Perris Valley, California this week participating in Jump for the Cause - a joint effort to raise money and awareness for breast cancer and break the current women’s world record for skydiving. The previous record was also set by JFTC on October 19, 2002 with 131 women and raised over $177k for City of Hope - my mom was a participant. :) She wasn’t able to go this year, but with so many of our friends still involved, I wanted to share the love. Some quick facts:

The 2005 record attempt includes 165 women, from 24 states and 15 countries. They will jump from eight planes flying at 17,000 feet (participants are on oxygen beginning at 15,000 feet). An average jump, from leap to landing, takes three to five minutes (a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer about every three minutes). The skydivers must hold their formation for five seconds — on film — for it to count as a record.

Roger, my step-dad, is at the event this week organizing the support team (the boys wanna jump too!) and some of the intitial practice dives on day 1 and 2. From the daily updates (which I will henceforth dub the BoobBlog), they are progressing very quickly and (I quote) “Of course anything can happen, but I know that Roger Ponce and Mallory have some side bets going on which jump number we’ll finish on and both are low numbers.”

GOOD LUCK, LADIES! Record-breaking vibes on the way from Austin.