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View Winners → Arcadia Firefighters Showing Support for Breast Cancer Awareness
Arcadia Weekly Oct 13, 2016
Photo Courtesy of Savannah Lauren.
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By Katta Hules
The Arcadia Firefighters Association (AFFA) is commemorating Breast Cancer Awareness Month by wearing pink. The AFFA had T-shirts made for all of their members to raise awareness for breast cancer. “If by seeing the pink shirts, one member of the public is reminded to schedule a screening with their doctor, then we have been successful in our campaign,” said Brian Ursettie, President of the AFFA.
The idea to do a Breast Cancer Awareness campaign came to firefighter Jonathan Burckle this summer. “When I came to Arcadia, I asked Brian Ursettie if we were doing a T-shirt this year and he actually said that they had never done it before and I volunteered to kind of spearhead the campaign.”
Burckle was already a fan of the various Breast Cancer Awareness T-shirts within the different cities’ departments in the Fire Service and had participated in the campaign with the previous department he worked for. He also has a personal connection to the campaigns, “I lost my grandma several years ago to breast cancer, so it’s always been something that’s been important in my family, especially for my dad.”
He took the idea the AFFA administration where it was approved unanimously. The shirts were delivered and passed out to members last month. The shirts are being “worn by on duty personnel for the whole month of October. On calls, out in public, and at the station, our members will be sporting pink to raise awareness,” said Ursettie.
“It’s been pretty awesome so far and just last shift, a survivor came up to me to thank us for wearing the shirts and that was a pretty powerful moment,” Burckle said. “It remind[ed] [me] of why I did this and it’s nice to know that a simple color with a ribbon means so much to so many people.”
The AFFA aims to use the campaign to “encourage people to get annual mammograms, especially those over forty. Also, we would like to encourage donations to cancer research.”
“Cancer in general is one of those things that effects almost everyone’s family to some degree, whether its sort of a distant relative … or some who’s [as] close as a mother, father, brother or sister,” said Burckle.
Cancer is a pressing issue for firefighters, who are disproportionately more likely to get the disease due to “occupational exposure,” according to a recent study by The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. While the AFFA is focusing on breast cancer this month, “we have had numerous members affected by cancer, and a lot of the cancers that have started in one location, end up spreading to others,” said Ursettie.
In addition to this month’s campaign, the AFFA participates in St. Baldrick’s events, where people shave their heads in solidarity with cancer patients and raise money for childhood cancer research. In November, they participate in Movember, a month-long mustache growing challenge to raise awareness and money for prostate and testicular cancer research. The AFFA also donates to the American Cancer Society.
The AFFA Breast Cancer Awareness shirts are available to purchase at www.affaapparel.com for $20. Ursettie asks that those who purchase a shirt continue to raise awareness by posting a selfie on social media with the hashtags #affainpink and #breastcancerawareness.
The proceeds of the shirt sales will go to the City of Hope, a local cancer center. “Doing things like this, [does] not necessarily raise awareness because … we’re all pretty aware of it being a problem but I just think the idea behind it is to continue to raise the idea that we need to get out there and find a cure, we need to continue to donate to places like City of Hope who have the capability, not only to take care of cancer patients, but to continue the research,” says Burckle.
“The idea behind this is every year it will get bigger,” said Burckle. Plans to expand next year’s Breast Cancer Awareness campaign are already underway. Burckle has been seeking out advice from friends in other fire departments and learning how they run their awareness campaigns. “It varies from big to small where some departments just have the members wear the shirts as just kind of an idea and a community awareness type thing and some fire departments, like I said, make it a big campaign where they set up online shops and they use social media to their advantage and they’re able to get bigger donations and that’s I think kind of what we’re heading towards.”
