The Coalition for Healthy Aging Breast Health Initiative (BHI), a program of the Vanderbilt Center for Health Services, received two of the grants.

The first BHI grant targets women 55 and older and minority women for breast health education by connecting underserved women to screening options and providing free clinical breast exams. The services will be provided on evenings and weekends to enhance education and treatment options for working seniors and minority women.

Along the way, the group will be raising money for Gilda's Club, a cancer support group.

"Every year it seems to be another 20-30-40 people that get interested and get behind it," said Callaway.

Callaway also has an added bit of motivation; his sister has battled breast cancer.

He believes the efforts of organizations like Gilda's Club are key in keeping spirits high and saving lives.

"That's one of the big aspects my sisters' gone through - the love and support she's had I think has made a big difference in why she's doing so well today," said Callaway.

The group will also be remembering a lost loved one. Dr. Gail Addleston lost a tough battle with cancer a year and a half ago.

"We thought this was a way to take her memory and keep it going forth," said Callaway.

Addleston was the first to get co-workers involved with Gilda's club shortly after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

The women, ranging in age from 20 to 52 years old, hula hooped the 13.1 miles that make up the half marathon in support of a new program called Hooping for Hope.

"The mission of our adventure is about taking almost 50 women across the finish line together." said Sunny Becks-Crumpton, founder of Hooping for Hope, which provides hoop fitness classes to breast cancer survivors in the Nashville area free of charge.  "It is about making a statement to the breast cancer survivors to show that we are taking steps with them showing them that they are not ever left behind."

The Hooping for Hope team has grown substantially since completing its first half marathon last year.  10 women crossed the finish line together in 2008.

At 49, the 2009 team is the largest group of hoopers to ever participate in a half marathon.

Following Saturday's race, Hooping for Hope will begin offering hooping packages on a monthly basic to breast cancer survivors in the Nashville area.

The Latino Breast Health Outreach primarily targets Hispanic women at the hospital's clinics on Charlotte and Edmondson pikes. Since 2006, six patients have been diagnosed with the disease.

Monica Arias' diagnosis came in 2004, she said in Spanish through an interpreter. Within eight months, Arias underwent tests, a surgery and chemotherapy at a very low cost, she said.

"I don't think I'd be alive," said Arias, who's been cancer free since.

"If the program hadn't been available, I would have had to return to Mexico with the fear that health care there isn't nearly as advanced as it is here. Everybody was very nice, and I didn't feel any degradation for not having health insurance."

Then one of Joyner's older sisters was diagnosed with the same disease. That sibling lived. The other died.

Those horrible years transformed Joyner from a retired Metro Nashville schoolteacher into a nationally recognized women's health advocate responsible for recruiting women to participate in a ground-breaking breast cancer study.