Grassroots Group Raises Funds for Breast Cancer Research, Programs
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Gathered for the Ashley County Cares check presentation were (left to right) Peter Emanuel, M.D.; Donna Shields; Meredith Sivils; V. Suzanne Klimberg, M.D.; Bernice Nelms; Ronda Henry-Tillman, M.D.; and Michael Preston.
Dec. 7, 2011 | Something special happens every Tuesday in south Arkansas’ Ashley County: Everyone wears pink.
“It’s unusual to see people who aren’t wearing pink on Tuesday,” said Donna Shields, a founding member of Ashley County Cares, the grassroots group responsible for Pink Tuesdays and several other breast cancer-related events throughout the year.
The weekly event is just one way that the group of about 20 women has bolstered the enthusiasm of their community to raise $185,000 over the past seven years for breast cancer
research and programs at the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer
Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).
“For a community organization to do what this group has done is incredible,” said Ronda Henry-Tillman, M.D., professor in the UAMS College of Medicine and director of the UAMS Cancer Control Program.
Three members of the group – Bernice Nelms, Meredith Sivils and Shields — traveled to Little Rock on Nov. 29 to present this year’s donation of $36,000.
On hand to receive the donation were Henry-Tillman; Peter Emanuel, M.D., Cancer Institute director and a professor in UAMS College of Medicine; and V. Suzanne Klimberg, M.D., chief of the Division of Breast Surgical Oncology and a professor in the UAMS College of Medicine.
“Being in a small community, we get a lot of response and support for this cause,” Nelms said. “It’s really our compassion for the women experiencing breast cancer that keeps us going.” Nelms is a founding member of the group and its president.
The group raises money throughout the year by selling T-shirts, hosting a trail ride, and sponsoring a dinner and auction, among other activities. The dinner and auction, which is the group’s largest annual fundraiser, brought in $14,000 in 2011 and featured UAMS researcher Susan Kadlubar, Ph.D., on the topic of Spit for the Cure, a research project involving the collection of saliva samples from women to aid in breast cancer research. More than 23,000 women have participated to date.
Spit for the Cure is one of the projects that group’s donation supports, along with the MammoVan, UAMS’ mobile mammography unit that provides screenings in Arkansas counties that lack FDA-approved mammography facilities.
“We’re working with UAMS to bring the MammoVan to some of the more remote areas of the Delta region,” Shields said.