(Butler, PA) Butler County Community College students have organized an effort to place pink donation buckets on the college’s main campus, to solicit gift cards for a raffle and to sell pink ribbons as part of a BC3 Project Pink campaign that has raised more than $20,000 during breast cancer awareness months since 2010.
BC3’s social awareness club will sell raffle tickets for gift cards at a Project Pink fundraising tent in the central oak grove of BC3’s main campus in Butler Township from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 10 to Oct. 13.
Gift cards available for raffle may include those to purchase gasoline or clothing, or for use at restaurants or other businesses.
Raffle tickets cost $1 each or 10 for $5. Tickets will be drawn and winners notified Oct. 14.
A pink ribbon can be purchased for $1 at the Project Pink fundraising tent. Ribbons will be displayed in the college’s Student Success Center and in its Pioneer Café through October.
Project Pink donation buckets will also be placed at the BC3 Bookstore, Pioneer Cafe and Logan Café.
Funds raised will benefit A Glimmer of Hope Foundation, Wexford. The nonprofit organization funds innovative programs, treatments, technology and research in order to prevent breast cancer from advancing, according to its website.
Chloe Fredley, 26, is a mother of three from Butler. The member of BC3’s social awareness club is pursuing a medical coding and billing specialist certificate and an addiction recovery certificate from the college.
“As a female, I think it is important that they are able to continue with the research so that we can diagnose these things sooner,” Fredley said. “I think it says a lot that BC3 coordinates these efforts.”
"As a female, I think it is important that they are able to continue with the research so that we can diagnose these things sooner. I think it says a lot that BC3 coordinates these efforts.”
Breast cancer is diagnosed in 264,000 women and 2,400 men annually in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 42,000 women and 500 men in the U.S. die each year from breast cancer, according to the CDC.
Members of the BC3 community have contributed $20,822 since 2010 to nonprofit organizations that fund research for breast cancer.
“There’s still a lot more that needs to be done,” said Sydney Ellis, 20, of Mars, who is pursuing an associate degree in social work at BC3 and is also a member of the college’s social awareness club.
“I’m glad that my peers … want to help people who need help and care about taking care of one another.”
The American Cancer Society and a pharmaceutical company founded breast cancer awareness month in 1985.
Community members can also donate to BC3’s Project Pink fundraiser at paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/2222926
