“Do not go gentle into that good night,”
Dylan Thomas
It’s been a tough year. Home-Ec 101 recently lost a friend to head and neck cancer. My stepbrother began, and as far as we know, is winning his fight with testicular cancer.
Every October, it seems, I add another reason, another person, another story to the list of why we should help raise cancer awareness.
I’m tired of adding to it. I don’t want to add anyone else
We don’t need to lose any more Gene Glaves.
Tonight my son will play in his midget football game with pink shoelaces and a pink mouth guard. He doesn’t get why we “think pink” every October. He just doesn’t understand. Frankly, I don’t want him to, at least not yet. All he knows is that it’s okay to wear pink because it’s about making sure someday other people’s moms and dads won’t get sick like his Uncle Nigel.
Sometimes we do little things to fight in little ways against big things.
Awful things.
Things that feel insurmountable and unwinnable.
Randal Munroe has a fantastic illustration of this. Since some of you object to bad language, I am linking rather than embedding the image. I share the sentiment of the illustration, language and all.
When we are fighting these things, we keep on keeping on. We do the little things. Sometimes things as little as washing our hands.
Today Method soap is launching its Pink Your Sink campaign.
Method is asking its fans on Facebook where it should donate $10,000 to support breast cancer awareness and research. Fans will have the chance to submit and vote on a breast cancer-affiliated non-profit organization in the U.S. and Canada for consideration. At the end of October, four charities will be chosen to receive a $2,500 gift.
I really like this tactic. Not only will four charities receive a $2,500 gift, but who knows how many breast cancer affiliate non-profits will be promoted as their supporters spread the word in a ripple effect.
Method believes in “design for good” and uses these limited edition designs to help raise breast cancer awareness. And if you haven’t heard, Method is now available in many more places than just a few months ago.
Little things add up to big things, and until we win. . .
Pink your sink, tie your shoelaces, put in your mouth guard, and
“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own, the poetry is not.
This does sound like a good idea on Method’s part. I hope people share their charities of choice and help raise money for such a good cause.
Please don’t pink your sink. Unless that makes you happy, but don’t do or buy anything pink in the name of breast cancer. The women I know, in the breast cancer metastatic community, HATE this month and all that pink. No one dies of cancer in the breast. They die because it metastasized. 30% of women (even those with early detection and no reoccurance) will get metastatic (Stage 4) breast cancer. Yet only 2% of funds raised by all the pink junk will go to research on what is killing women and men. Only 2%. It’s not enough. These women fight every day, are on chemo for YEARS and no one recognizes them or allows them to speak at those walks or runs or raises money to find a REAL cure and better treatment so they can live longer. So if you care and you want to make a difference, change who you donate to. Boycott those pink items, they are not helping. Educate others. Please. That would make a difference, to those women and to this daughter who lost her mom to a 16 year breast cancer fight on 9/21/12.
Also we don’t need more awareness. We are all aware. We need a cure. We need treatments to extend life.
Check out metastatic breast cancer network.
The pink your sink campaign is not affiliated with the non profit you are referencing.The pink is so that people know what it’s about. The money is going to go to 4 non profits affiliated with breast cancer. These non profits will be vetted.
I sincerely believe that the people at Method are going to give the money to non profits with better track records than that.
Excuse any typos, replying from my phone.
And I am so sorry about your daughter.
It was my mom, but thank you.
Method is donating 30% to metastatic research? Then they will be the FIRST company to ever do so. I’m not being sarcastic.
I strongly suggest you spend 5 minutes reading the thoughts of those with incurable Stage 4, the ones will die of this, before you promote anything pink themed. You will see how they have been ignored , and about how pink themed anything is an immediate turn off. You will see why I, normally not a commentor, would jump on this.
I will be seriously impressed if Method even looks at those women and their struggle and the funds dedicated to their survival, but I am not holding my breath. The comments on their FB page are half “please stop pink washing” and half “yay Method”. I love their stuff but if they want to really help, they should have stood up and said – THIS MATTERS.
It’s not just the stage 4 folks that get irritated. Thank God my mom’s breast cancer was caught early this year, and after surgery and preventative radiation has been given an excellent prognosis, but heaven help the poor soul that gives her a pink ribboned anything.
I am all for promoting whatever will save lives, but many of us feel like this pink stuff is just another marketing ploy. If method is truly contributing to something that will really help, more power to them, but many of us are really tired of pink ribbon campaigns.
(Love your blog, this isn’t personal, and the message is more to your sponsor than you. Your heart is in the right place.)
p.s. Just by eliminating the chemicals 1-BPA(in many plastics and on almost all store receipts…oh, and I just read the US govt is planning on using it in the printing of new currency) and 2-Dioxins they would approach the caring of the 80 plus countries which are banning these chemicals because of their detrimental effect on health. Also, the labeling of GMO foods is an ABSOLUTE necessity!! GMO foods within 2 generations cause all sorts of bizarre changes to the human DNA. It directly affects fertility (which we are already seeing ) and causes bizarre side effects like hair to grow inside the mouth. (It’s already happened to hamsters during the testing). But, as usual, the profits of Monsanto and many others outweigh the importance of our health.I, like you, Liz, am sick of buying the lies; and if we don’t stop this movement now (it’s up for vote in Washington State) we are are all responsible for the outcome.
Liz, you are exactly on target!!! If only a small percentage of people knew the tiny percentage of the HUGE amount of money that was donated to actually end cancer there would be an uproar! I, too, lost my mother to cancer (on 4/22/12). If ANY organization concentrated on PREVENTION rather than a “cure” I think we all would get behind them 100%! I’ve been following Dr. Mercola for the last 15 years and ANYONE who has any interest in this topic should check out the vast amount of information he has available on his site. The only reason the big cancer organizations exist today is for sucking the money out of the unaware population, playing on their sympathies, and to invent a drug to prolong the life span of cancer patients (while makeing HUG profits from their drugs). Their cut and burn philosophy comes directly from the AMA and they demonize anyone with alternate cures, yes actual cures. The FDA has, for many many years, tried to shut down anyone with an actual cure (see Dr. Bryzinski’s clinic in Houston). Dr. Mercola has a video presentation from stage IV pancreatic cancer patients who were cured 17 years ago by Dr. Bryzinski.
I was just having these same thoughts earlier this year when the Komen organization asked my golf group, yet again, to have another pink tournament on their behalf. Our board talked about it and decided to have the tourney but to give the money to the local food bank because it can be spent more reasonably here. We’ve done some digging and discovered that two-thirds of the money Komen raises is used to do more fundraising. You’re right, we all are aware, we all know someone who has struggled and/or passed from cancer (including my Marine son who has hopefully beaten testicular cancer). It would be so great if all that fundraising money could be spent ONLY on research. Oh, well…
And how will wearing pink help raise awareness for head/neck cancers or testicular cancer? It really pisses me off that there is pink EVERYTHING but nothing about pancreatic cancer (which is extremely deadly because of lack of funding) which my grandma currently has an end stage of and prostate cancer which my grandpa is currently fighting?
My name is Harry Diaz Michelle and i am from Canada, My husband had suffered so much helping cure my disease we went bankrupt of this. And my husband had searched everywhere for help until one day my husband was sitting close to a pool not far from my house then he meant a black-man who noticed he was so sad and the man came to him ask what his problem were and my husband told him everything that is happening to me and the man laughed at my husband, my husband said he was angry and he thought he was been laughed at because his wife had cancer but unfortunately the man laughed because the sickness sound like it was just a slight headache. He told my husband that this problem is easy he gave my husband and email and told him to contact the Dr. Iroko with the email herbalbestsolution23@hotmail.com that this man can help cure any type of cancer with herb. We contacted this man and he sent his herbal medicine and perhaps i took it for 1week twice a day and i was completely healed from cancer of the eye. I am sorry if this is too much if only i can write more and more cause it was like God had our prayers and send someone to us who direct us to our savior Dr. Iroko. So i come to you today cause that same God has also used me to post this testimonies so that you that is also sick from this disease can also be free forever.