St. Tammany Health System’s inaugural United in Pink breast cancer awareness campaign is in the books, and health system leadership is, to put it mildly, tickled pink with the results.
Wednesday night (Nov. 17), key community partners in the campaign celebrated its success, as well as the money it raised for local cancer services, at a wrap-up event at the Southern Hotel in Covington.
In all, the campaign – which ran throughout October to coincide with Breast Cancer Awareness Month – raised $35,287. That money will go directly toward cancer care at the newly constructed St. Tammany Cancer Center, a campus of Ochsner Medical Center, which was designed to provide patients a local “one-stop shop” for cancer care.
“What started as a spark has truly become a fire,” health system President and CEO Joan Coffman said at Wednesday’s event, noting that the effort was really a community-wide one. “We are so blessed in this community to have so many truly amazing people.”
Highlighting the night was a check presentation from the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office for just more than $20,000. Much of that was raised $5 at a time in exchange for allowing members of the public to sign one of two pink-wrapped sheriff’s vehicles at a variety of local events throughout the month.
Special thanks were also given to Rich Mauti of the Mauti Cancer Fund, a driving force behind the campaign; St. Tammany Health System Community Outreach Coordinator Anne Pablovich, who brought the health system’s new Be Well Bus – a mobile health unit outfitted with mammography equipment – to events throughout the area almost daily in October; and a litany of local “Pink Partner” businesses that hosted “give-back” events, in which a portion of sales were earmarked for the campaign.
According to Cancer Center Administrator Jack Khashou, just as important as the money raised was the opportunity the campaign gave local women to get their annual breast cancer screenings.
“If you catch it early, you change the outcome,” Khashou said. “It saves lives. It really does. There’s no other way to say it.”
For that reason, he said, local residents can expect to see a return of United in Pink next year.
“We can’t stop now,” he said, “because you need to get your screening every year.”