Cindy Wooten Pare, administrator of the MaryEllen Locher Foundation, spoke to the GPS Health and Wellness classes, educating them about myths and misconceptions regarding breast cancer. Accompanied by Carol Ellis, a breast cancer survivor who spoke about her own history with the disease, she shared statistics on age, gender, and family genes.
For example, said Ms. Pare, one in eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime, and for women, the death rates are second only to lung cancer. “Breast cancer,” she told the surprised students, “has been found in girls as young as age 11, and 85 percent of women with breast cancer have no family history of the disease.”
Early detection is, of course, the key to fighting the disease, said Ms. Ellis, with self-examinations and mammograms beginning as early as age 40 recommended. Mel’s Club, launched recently by the foundation, is an education program for teen and college-aged women that “will equip and educate students in the areas of misconceptions, facts, warning signs and prevention, and tools and training in self-exams.”
Their presentation and the recognition of October as Breast Cancer Awareness month spurred the GPS Health Club to share statistics with the student body at an assembly. A number of GPS students and families also participated in the annual Komen fundraising walk. The MaryEllen Locher Foundation will be sponsoring a Hoops for Hope basketball tournament at GPS on Dec. 13.