October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Each year, we try to do something that directly benefits breast cancer research, or the people that have been affected. We didn’t want to just carry products with a breast cancer ribbon and pass that off as contributing to “awareness.” Rather, we wanted to think critically about what we could do to directly impact the people and the research this month is all about. We did the research. We searched for organizations that used donations to directly aid the fight against cancer. We thought it’d be nice to find an organization that contributed in our local community of Southern California.
We learned that in 2015 alone, over 231,000 women and 2,000 men were estimated to be diagnosed with breast cancer. Of those, most will spend tens of thousands of dollars on treatment. The cost of treatment, coupled with all of life’s other expenses, can be an enormous burden to bear.
With all this in mind, we came across Breast Cancer Angels (BCA). BCA stood out to us because they are a Southern California-based nonprofit that is doing something unique–all of the proceeds (yes, 100% of donations!) go directly to addressing the ancillary needs of those who are currently in treatment for breast cancer. When we think about cancer, we often think about awareness, research, and the cure, but not as much about the costs outside of treatment (normal things, like housing, food, and even gas) that get exponentially harder when you are ill. BCA helps more than 120 families each month with food, supplies, gas, legal services, and more, so they can focus their energy on kicking cancer’s butt. We think that this is something truly special.
With an organization in mind, we set out to donate 20% of the proceeds from over 80 products throughout the month of October. In total, we raised $2006.34 to donate to BCA by November 1st–enough to provide a month of food supplies to 8 families, or a month of housing assistance to 4 families (based on figures from BCA’s website). No, it is not nearly enough to help everyone that is affected, but we hope that the donation helped BCA make the lives of a few more families just a bit easier as they battle breast cancer.
For more information about Breast Cancer Angels and its mission, click here.