The month of October is known as Breast Cancer Awareness month, and in honor of this, Park City High School is hosting a pink out day on October 24. Throughout the month, students are passing out pink ribbon pins to other students to raise awareness.

One of the main goals of Breast Cancer Awareness month is to educate people on breast cancer, including how to identify and ways to help victims. One in every five women will get breast cancer and one in every fifteen men will get breast cancer.

Do you know what a mammogram is? If you don’t, it is a screening test women (and men) get to see if they have breast cancer.

In the Park City School District, there have been multiple women to overcome breast cancer. 

Communications director Melinda Colton, a woman who luckily caught her breast cancer in the early stages, stresses scheduling regular mammograms and the importance of early detection.

Colton said that she has no history of breast cancer in her family. So she says that, “early detection was key” for her. She also said her yearly mammograms ”saved her life!” 

”People tend to not be aware of it until it has impacted someone in their own family” Colton said. More and more women aren’t being diagnosed till later in more dangerous stages, another reason why early detection is so important. 

In the month of October, wearing pink is an easy way to draw awareness and show support. But teacher Deborah Dekoff, a breast cancer survivor, disapproves of the practice of wearing pink. 

Dekoff’s view is that people think breast cancer can be cured by pink. But the practice of wearing pink and selling things that are pink don’t necessarily result in the proceeds being used to help people with breast cancer.

This belief and action is scene by the community of men and women with breast cancer as “pink-washing”. Dekoff is angered by people practicing pink washing thinking they are helping. 

Dekoff explains that pink washing is selling pink items or items with the pink ribbon on them. Along with other things, such as dressing in pink, drinking a pink drink all October, and much more similar actions that at first sight seem like they will result in change. 

Pink-washing can over all bring to confusion to people on the street that don’t understand that pink represents breast cancer awareness.

Dekoff further states, “The former can be a form of “pink-washing” – something that a large number of breast cancer patients despise.”

The month of October was created to be Breast Cancer Awareness Month to support women who have it and to encourage women who don’t to be cautious about their health. Although, now it is turning into people believing they can take a few steps to their closet and wear a pink shirt and that is enough. When really, in October, women should be encouraged to receive checkups and tests.

Dekoff strongly advises that instead of wearing pink, that awareness for breast cancer should mean, “encouraging women to get mammograms”.

“Utah is low in number of women getting mammograms,” Dekoff further states on the problem, “and high in de novo stage IV cases”.

When people think about raising awareness for breast cancer, they think of just the illness, when really there is so much more following. 

Dekoff expresses that people should focus on putting their money to “sending an advocate to a cancer symposium so that that advocate can better learn how to help their community members with cancer.”

In the Park City community, many people are taking that next step to show their love and awareness for breast cancer. On October 24, there will be a town-wide pink-out centralizing around high school students.

The store Ann Taylor is hosting a “Strength in Numbers” fundraiser. If you purchase an Ann Taylor Cares Card for $25, you get 20% off in-store purchases of $100 or 25% off in-store purchases of $100 is you also have an Ann Taylor credit card. They state where the money will go to on their site, “90% of the purchase price goes to Breast Cancer Research Foundation.”

On October 26, there will also be a “Making Strides of Utah” walk at Liberty Park. If interested in participating, check-in is at 7:30 am and the walk begins at 9 am. 

Breast Cancer Awareness can be shown in many ways. Wearing a pink ribbon is a start, especially for students. Although, donations directly from your pocket to breast cancer research helps even more to continue making steps toward a cure.