Every 12 minutes throughout the United States, a woman dies from breast cancer, the most frequently diagnosed cancer of American women. To foster more awareness of breast cancer and the value of early detection in the fight to cure it, October has been designated Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
To focus this awareness more sharply, the Southern Appalachia Leadership Initiative on Cancer (SALIC), based within the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, and in conjunction with its partners throughout North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, has set aside the week of Oct. 5 - 12 as Pink Ribbon Week. The pink ribbon symbolizes the valiant fight that breast cancer victims, survivors, volunteers and medical researchers have waged against this deadly disease.
Community-based volunteers and workers throughout SALIC have joined to bring this breast cancer awareness campaign to the attention of women throughout the region ... and to the families who love them.
A highlight of the Pink Ribbon Campaign is the display of a 3-foot by 5-foot center square which will be the heart of planned giant quilt, the Pinnacle of Hope Quilt, commemorating breast cancer awareness.
The Pinnacle of Hope center square will travel from North Carolina to Lavonia, Georgia on October 13, and then on to the "Celebration of Hope," to be held in Easley, South Carolina on October 25. Over the next year, quilters from the three states will be invited to submit quilt squares depicting the message of hope through early detection, and add that hope to the center square. The completion of the Pinnacle of Hope quilt is expected sometime during 1998.
"For generations, the act of sewing a quilt has been a time-honored activity that brought Appalachian women together to exchange information, ideas and to share solutions to problems," says Brenda Stone-Wiggins, SALIC project manager with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service at North Carolina State University. "And now we're using the creation of a quilt to help carry the message to women about how early detection is the most powerful weapon against breast cancer. We hope that this campaign will put women in touch with community resources that will help them get to mammogram screening, to learn self-examination and, most importantly, to help spread the word to other women."