Student-athletes wear pink to show support for those affected by deadly disease
Erin Frost
staff writer
The month of the color pink: October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an annual campaign to increase awareness of the disease. Having a mother who fought this disease and is six-years cancer free changed the way I view this month drastically.
The mission of this month is to raise awareness and funds for research and prevention of the disease, but little of that is actually accomplished in the span of this month.
In the school community, involvement includes participation from sports teams, such as both varsity and JV cheer, as well as JV field hockey and varsity girls’ soccer.
During the Friday night and Saturday morning football games in the month of October, both JV cheer and varsity are decked out in their pink bows and use pink poms to cheer on the sidelines. These items are worn and used while cheering as a way to honor breast cancer awareness. “I really like wearing the pink bow and cheering with the pink poms because I find it really special to raise awareness to this disease,” freshman Nicole Wasserman, a member of both JV and varsity cheer said.
JV field hockey honored this month by wearing pink face paint to the game against Northwood on Oct. 10 as well as pink ribbons in their hair at the game against Quince Orchard on Oct. 12. “As a team we decided it was a great idea to wear pink accents to our games in October to honor breast cancer awareness, and I am glad we did this because I think it portrays an important message,” sophomore Kelly Baldwin said.
For the varsity girls’ soccer game against Blake on Oct.16, the girls honored breast cancer awareness by dressing up in pink as their theme. “The captains made the decision to dress up in pink for school the day of the game against Blake to contribute to the awareness of breast cancer,” senior Mollie Greenberg said.
As I view the little things done within this school to raise awareness, I begin to realize that there is little to no impact on raising money and on the disease as a whole. The month of October is more than just wearing the color pink. To begin to make a change in this matter, my mother and I arranged the varsity cheer team to collect money during halftime at Friday’s varsity football game vs. Walkersville. The team will be collecting money to be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The foundation will match all of the gifts received this month and 91 percent of all funds will go out to breast cancer research.
