Looking for a cause to get behind this October? Naz Sykes, the executive director of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, shares information about her organization's important new initiative and how you can get involved:
We are in the midst of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and flooded by a sea of pink products asking for our financial support. It's overwhelming and sometimes hard to navigate, and it can be hard to measure the impact our dollars will have on moving the needle closer to finding the right answers about a disease that continues to kill 108 women every day.
So, you might be wondering what the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation is doing that is different, and why you should consider supporting us. Our mission is simple. We are working to understand what causes breast cancer and figure out ways to prevent it. We don't want the next generation of young women to ever hear the words, "You have breast cancer." We want to eliminate breast cancer from our vocabulary.
Yes, it's a lofty goal! Many might caution that our goal is too ambitious, but it's unacceptable to watch 280,000 women get diagnosed with breast cancer every year—a number that hasn't changed much since 2003. How are we going to accomplish our goal and the promise we have made to eradicate this disease once and for all?
Our approach is all about research and, specifically, research on women—all kinds of women: women with a history of breast cancer and women without breast cancer. It's hard to believe healthy women play a key role in research, but they do, and it's important for them to get involved. Many times when we hear about breast cancer research, we assume the research involves only women with breast cancer. What we need is both: women with and without breast cancer. We need all women over the age of 18 and of every ethnicity to commit themselves to our two signature call to action programs:
And finally, we can't do our innovative work into the cause and prevention of breast cancer without generous financial support from the public. If you are ready to take part in a different kind of movement—a movement focused on research and ending breast cancer—I encourage you to make a donation. A $25 donation goes a long way for us, so visit www.dslrf.org and contribute today.
This October, join and commit yourself to the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation and act with Love. By investing your dollars, yourself and your friends, you are making breast cancer history!
This guest blog post was written by Naz Sykes, executive director of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation.