Swag for the Cure

I feel priv­i­leged to intro­duce my friend and fellow-writer Melissa Still­man to the DASHEEN fam­ily. I was so excited when she sent me this copy, firstly because she is such a tal­ent, and sec­ondly because she has been such a cheer­leader of what I do on here! As we are all aware Octo­ber or Pink­to­ber is set aside for Breast Can­cer Aware­ness. There were any num­ber of ways to get involved and really show sup­port for a cause that has touched so many of our loved ones, friends and women (even men) in gen­eral. Melissa, her sis­ter Jen­nifer and her nephew Caleb raced for the cure! Enjoy her reflec­tion on that experience.

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SWAG FOR THE CURE

By Melissa Andrews-Stillman

I love free stuff.  I’m a couponer, a deal site sub­scriber and the first in line for a sam­ple. So after col­lect­ing my medal­lion at the fin­ish line of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, and whisk­ing a banana and yogurt cup off the refresh­ment table, you know my sights were locked on the exhibit hall—code for lots of free pink stuff (I also love pink).

While there were some great give­aways that totally fit the event and the cause—like pink New Bal­ance under eye stick­ers (sim­i­lar to the grease smudges foot­ball play­ers wear to cut glare and increase intimidation)—quite a few left me scratch­ing my head. As much as I love free good­ies, I couldn’t fig­ure out how chang­ing a prod­uct to rose-colored pack­ag­ing made it rel­e­vant. (That didn’t keep me from pick­ing them up, of course.)

In the days since the race, I’ve been reflect­ing on the con­cept of Pink­to­ber. Does slap­ping a pink rib­bon on some­thing really increase aware­ness of the dis­ease and sup­port for find­ing a cure or is it just “holy junk”? And how do the grow­ing num­bers of those who have been touched by the big C feel about the influx of pink, from blush to magenta, dur­ing the fall?

In the end what was prob­a­bly the least-interesting piece of swag I picked up on race day, a mag­netic pink rib­bon, has done the most to inspire me. I’m adamantly opposed to cause rib­bons on vehi­cles, so I stuck it to my tread­mill. Now every time I work­out I think back to walk­ing the 5K with my sis­ter, nephew and thou­sands of oth­ers in sup­port of sur­vivors and in mem­ory of those lost to the disease—a sea peo­ple, wrapped in pink for a purpose.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Melissa Still­man is a UCF grad who is mar­ried to her high school sweet­heart and works as a writer for a faith-based non-profit. Her free­lance work has also appeared in The Orlando Sen­tinel and Cen­tral Florida Lifestyle Magazine.

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