Many people know someone or have heard of someone who has suffered from breast cancer. The problem with breast and ovarian cancer is that women often realize too late that they have it. That is why, to help increase awareness, a Bright Pink 5k run was held to raise money for Bright Pink, a nonprofit organization.
Bright Pink focuses on prevention and early detection of breast and ovarian cancer in young women. According to Brightpink.org, donations help them to “educate young women nationwide about early detection and risk reduction, empower the medical professionals that take care of them, and offer support and resources to women at high risk.”
Kappa Epsilon, the Student Society of Health System Pharmacists (SSHP), and Zeta Tau Alpha teamed up to run the event. Both Kappa Epsilon and Zeta Tau Alpha have national projects involving these two cancers, so they figured pairing up with Bright Pink was beneficial. SSHP has already raised awareness in the past, so they did not hesitate to continue to support this cause. In fact, Kappa Epsilon and SSHP previously partnered for the Spielman 5k for breast cancer.
To support this race is to support the cause for breast and ovarian cancer awareness, and celebrate all who have fought these types of cancer. Katie Bova, National Projects Coordinator of Kappa Epsilon, believes that the race will be a success in bringing in this awareness.
“At the event, breast and ovarian cancer survivors [are] honored. This allows participants to see how our loved ones’ lives have been affected by cancer.”
As this is the first year the race was held, Shannon Kraus, president of Kappa Epsilon, explained how they first heard about Bright Pink.
“We got involved with Bright Pink after hearing about it this summer at the Kappa Epsilon National Convention when a bylaw was passed to add Ovarian Cancer Awareness to our National Projects, in addition to Breast Cancer Awareness.”
The event took place on September 19 at the ONU picnic pavilion by the mud volleyball courts. Just for registering, competitors received a t-shirt and a raffle ticket, and like a traditional race, the top finishers received prizes.
Their goal was to have at least 120 participants. The attendance in past races has been impressive, so the groups had high hopes that this would be a successful race.