On a quiet March morning, a small stretch of local road in Tennessee came alive with movement, conversation, and purpose. Walkers, joggers, family, and friends set off together, moving not for competition, but for something far more personal.

At the heart of the gathering was Tina Staggs and her family, participating as Team Tina, and bringing Project Purple’s Purple Paddy Virtual 5K to life in their own community. Kristy Staggs, Tina’s sister-in-law and the organizer of the event, wanted the walk to be more than a virtual challenge. She wanted it to be a visible, shared act of support for Tina, who was diagnosed with Stage Four pancreatic cancer in 2024.

What unfolded on that road was less about miles and more about meaning: a three-mile walk that became a moment of connection, awareness, and quiet resistance against a disease that too often moves in silence. It was also a reminder that anyone can take part in that fight, starting right in their own community through efforts like Project Purple’s Virtual Event Series.

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Tina’s Diagnosis and the Fight That Followed

Tina has been a part of Kristy’s family for more than 30 years. She married Kristy’s husband’s oldest brother and, in that time, has become a steady, familiar presence: someone who showed up, someone who stayed strong for others.

That didn’t change when she was diagnosed. “She is very courageous. She does not give up,” Kristy shares. “If you didn’t know it, you wouldn’t know she has pancreatic cancer.”

Tina’s journey to diagnosis, however, was anything but simple. It took nearly six months of worsening symptoms and repeated misdiagnoses before doctors finally identified the mass on her pancreas.

What started as stomach pain in late 2023 gradually escalated into back and side pain that would not go away. She was treated for acid reflux, pleurisy, and even a kidney infection. Each visit brought a new explanation, but no real relief.

By June 2024, after finally establishing care with a new primary doctor, things moved quickly. A CT scan revealed a mass. Within weeks, she was referred to specialists at Vanderbilt, underwent an endoscopy, and received confirmation of pancreatic cancer by the end of June.

By early July, Tina underwent exploratory surgery. It was then that she received the most devastating news: it was stage four. The disease had already spread to the stomach lining. From there, chemotherapy began almost immediately.

Even through treatment, Tina’s outlook remained remarkably steady. She continued showing up for her family, for events, and for life itself. “Your attitude is very important when you’re diagnosed with something like this,” Kristy says. From the day she was diagnosed, Tina made her stance clear: “We’re going to beat this. The cancer is not going to win.”

A Name That Became a Movement

That perseverance became integral to the thought behind the event on March 14th. Team Tina didn’t begin with Purple Paddy: it began in the days following Tina’s diagnosis, when her family immediately rallied around her.

“About a week after she was diagnosed, We got t-shirts made,” Kristy recalls. “We didn’t know what she was going to be facing, so we just came together and named ourselves Team Tina.”

The name stuck. It became a shorthand for support, resilience, and family unity. Over time, it grew into something larger than a group chat or a set of matching shirts: it became a mindset, one that shaped how the family showed up for Tina in the months that followed.

So when Kristy began seeing Project Purple’s Purple Paddy Virtual 5K appear repeatedly on her Facebook feed, something clicked. “I thought, ‘That sounds fun. Let’s do something to break up the winter and get people involved,’” she recalls.

For Kristy, it wasn’t about starting something new. It was about carrying the spirit of Team Tina into a new space: creating an opportunity to bring people together, raise awareness, and turn support into action. A few months before the event, she made a Facebook post and began inviting family, friends, and others who knew Tina. As the invitations went out, responses came quickly, along with donations and messages of support. “As people started contributing, I said to myself, ‘Okay, this is growing bigger than I thought it was going to,’” Kristy recalls.

It became clear that people weren’t just interested: they were deeply engaged, committed to showing up not only for Tina, but for the cause itself.

A Day Made for Presence

With interest building, she worked to secure a safe, accessible route through her local volunteer fire department, which allowed the group to gather on nearby property and use a low-traffic road for the 5K.

From there, the plan stayed intentionally simple: anyone who wanted to participate could show up and do anything to cross the finish line. “I told everyone, ‘Just come,’” she says. “‘Walk, crawl, whatever—just join us.’”

To add a small personal touch, Kristy put together goodie bags for participants, each filled with purple ribbon pendants, bracelets, locally made cookies, and trail mix. Her daughter helped set up arches along the route, adding a simple, but meaningful visual touch to the course. “There were no winners,” she says. “You were just there to have a good time.”

Around 25 people showed up that day, including Tina’s nieces and nephews, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, friends, and extended family members. But more importantly, Tina was there.

When Kristy first shared the idea of doing a Purple Paddy event in her honor and for the cause, Tina was immediately on board. “She was so excited,” Kristy says. “I would keep posting in the Facebook group about how much money we were raising, and she was really happy about it.”

Not only was she present, but she remained involved throughout the morning, riding in a golf cart that acted as a kind of unofficial pace car, following along as participants made their way through the course.

But her presence that day was also a testament to her strength. She was still in active chemotherapy treatment, having had chemo just a few days prior, so she wasn’t feeling her best and was unable to walk the full distance. Still, Kristy says, “She didn’t let it slow her down. She was on the go, always smiling. And she was determined she was going to be there.” 

What Support Looks Like

After the event, Kristy and her family found themselves reflecting on just how significant the morning had been, not only for Tina, but for everyone who showed up. “I’ve done a lot of 5Ks,” Kristy says. “But not everybody thinks those things are fun.” So what stood out most to her wasn’t the run itself, but who was willing to be part of it.

Many of the people who attended didn’t regularly participate in 5Ks, and some had never participated in one before. In the end, most of them became walkers for the day, covering the full 3.1 miles together. “That’s a big deal for people that don’t do that kind of thing,” she says. “To have all those people there, just showing support, it meant something.”

Kristy says Tina has made it a priority to stay present in those moments with her family: to show up whenever she can, to be part of gatherings, and to hold onto the everyday experiences that matter most. “She wants the pictures, she wants the time,” Kristy says. “The material things aren’t everything, it’s about making sure you’re living life.” And that is what Purple Paddy became.

That spirit carried beyond the family itself and into the broader community. What started as an internal show of support quickly expanded outward. Donations came in from friends, acquaintances, and even people who had never met Tina. Some gave $50 or $100 at a time. “They knew it mattered to me,” Kristy says. “And they wanted to support that.”

For Awareness, For Tina

But Purple Paddy, Kristy says, ultimately became about more than fundraising. It became about visibility, about breaking the silence that so often surrounds pancreatic cancer, and about giving Tina a moment of recognition and joy in the middle of an otherwise difficult year.

“Pancreatic cancer is such a silent cancer,” Kristy shares. “People don’t know the symptoms until it’s too late.” That reality shaped much of what the family wanted to do, not just on event day, but in how they framed the entire effort. Before the walk began, Kristy took time to walk the group through the background of Project Purple and Tina’s journey, making sure everyone understood what they were showing up for. “I wanted them to know why,” she says.

For her, it is not only about moments like the 5K, but about what comes after: sustained involvement, shared responsibility, and expanding the ways people can show up. Project Purple’s Virtual Event Series offers multiple opportunities throughout the year, and Kristy says she and the rest of Team Tina hope to make participation an annual tradition moving forward. The response after the event was simple and immediate: “Let’s do it again.”

And Kristy hopes that momentum extends beyond their own family. “There are so many different things people can do,” she says. “Bring on the team, get others involved.” For her, that is the real goal: not just one event, but a widening circle of awareness and participation, where more people feel empowered to step in, show up, and carry the message forward.

If you’d like to run or participate in an event of your own for Project Purple, visit our events page.

And if a virtual event like Team Tina’s Purple Paddy experience inspires you, our Virtual Events Series makes it easy to get started.