So it is October again so that means it is breast cancer awareness month! Now for a breast cancer survivor like me every month is breast cancer awareness I don’t think a week has passed without thinking about it. I used to think about it all day every day so once a week is a big improvement for me.
When October comes around have you noticed everything turns pink? I was driving by a feed store today and they have pink canopies outside, pink balloons even the dog food bags were pink. Now it is great that breast cancer is finally coming out of the shadows and into public view but pink dog food bags? Wouldn’t breast cancer research get more money donated to them if the dog food makers just did not pay for pink bags and donated that cost instead of the tiny percent of sales that they will donate?
Everyone has a tendency to buy pink during October thinking they are really contributing to kick this awful diseases back side but the reality is some businesses are making tiny donations and raking in big profits because people see pink and think it is helping breast cancer research. There are a lot of legitimate businesses that go pink and really help by donating the green to breast cancer research. There are ways to check it out if you are interested you can go to that company’s website, read the packaging and see what percent of their sales of their pinked out merchandise is actually going to help in the research.
When you do research you will see many companies are going pink to get themselves a lot of green while donating very little or a set dollar amount to an organization. If a company says they will donate a certain amount of each sale up until a set dollar amount are they going to pull the other pink items off the shelves? No! People will keep buying items all colored pink with the cute little pink logo thinking they are making a difference and they will never know that their sale of that item just added to the company’s bottom line not to help in the fight against breast cancer.
Am I saying that the pink marketing is not good for cancer awareness, research and treatments absolutely not but like with any other product do your research and support companies that make a legitimate donation to the cause. The pink for a cause is great because it does bring breast cancer to the front of everyone’s mind. For me I wear my pink ribbon clothes, my survivor shirt all year long not just in October. For me and all the other survivors out there every day is a cancer awareness day.