Long before we ever picked up a pickleball paddle, we were The U Go Girls.

Growing up, breast cancer awareness wasn't something we only heard about during the month of October. It was something we grew up surrounded by.

Year after year, we watched our mom walk 60 miles in three days alongside thousands of women and men, raising money and awareness for breast cancer. We grew up hearing the stories they carried with them. Stories of survivors. Stories of people in the middle of their fight. Stories honoring mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, friends, and loved ones who fought incredibly hard but were no longer there to walk beside them.

Our mom wasn't walking because she had breast cancer herself. She walked because people she cared about did. She showed up for friends who were fighting, for those who had survived, and for those who had been lost. Year after year, she kept marching, and without realizing it at the time, we were learning from her what it meant to show up for a cause and a community you believe in.

Our dad made sure we were part of that community too. He supported our mom every step of the way, pulled us out of school, dressed us in the most ridiculous pink outfits, helped us make signs, and took us out along the route to cheer until we lost our voices. His involvement eventually went beyond cheering, even creating a business focused on raising breast cancer awareness and funds for research. He showed us what it meant to support the people you love and to care about making the world better, not only for your own daughters, but for everyone else's too.

Somewhere along the way, the San Diego 3-Day community came to know us as "The U Go Girls." And year after year, we showed up. If you walked the San Diego 3-Day back then, there's a good chance you saw us somewhere along those 60 miles.

At the time, we were little girls who mostly knew that we were supposed to wear pink, yell as loudly as possible, and make people smile. As we got older, we began to understand what we were actually witnessing: an incredible community of fighters, survivors, supporters, and believers who refused to give up on a future without breast cancer. And through our parents, we learned that being part of that community meant continuing to show up however you could.

We hoped that by the time we became young women ourselves, that future might be here. But today, 1 in 8 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. At 26, that statistic feels a lot different than it did when we were 10.

So we keep showing up.

This year, Cailin and I are channeling our inner 10-year-old U Go Girls, with a little bit of a twist. Instead of standing on the side of the road with homemade signs, we'll be on the pickleball court participating in Smash Breast Cancer, raising money for Susan G. Komen.

We're doing it because our parents taught us to keep showing up. For the women and men we grew up cheering for. For the survivors. For those currently fighting. For the people we've lost. And for the hope that someday, the next generation of little girls won't have to grow up wondering if breast cancer will one day affect them or someone they love.

Until that future is real, we keep fighting. We keep raising awareness. We keep showing up. And most importantly, we keep believing.

If you're able, please consider donating to The U Go Girls and helping us support Susan G. Komen's work to end breast cancer.

Twenty-something years later, the U Go Girls are still cheering. We're just trading our posters for paddles this time.