BATON ROUGE — In its inaugural “Dig for the Cure” campaign, the LSU volleyball team was successful in raising both money and awareness for the world’s most common cause of cancer death in women.
After their month-long campaign in October to coincide with “Breast Cancer Awareness Month”, the Tigers raised over $3,650 for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, formerly known as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
Pledge donations were accepted throughout the month based on the number of digs in LSU’s four Southeastern Conference home matches. Representatives from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, formerly known as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, were also on hand at the matches to accept direct monetary donations.
As part of the LSU campaign, against Alabama and Arkansas, the Tiger and Crimson Tide teams kicked off the campaign by wearing specially designed pink warm-up shirts. LSU donned the shirts again, along with the Lady’Backs, to close out the campaign.
The “Dig for the Cure” campaign was originally started in 2003 by Charlotte head coach Lisa Marston, whose mother was a breast cancer survivor, and has spread to volleyball programs across the country in recent years. This year, the campaign has raised almost a quarter of a million dollars from the 93 participating programs. Over the previous four years of the program, the “Dig for the Cure” campaign raised over $108,000 before more than doubling the previous four-year total this year.
The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation was established in 1982 by Nancy Brinker to honor the memory of her sister, Susan G. Komen, who died from breast cancer at the age of 36. Komen for the Cure is the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists fighting to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cures. Thanks to events like the Komen Race for the Cure and Dig for the Cure, the foundation has invested nearly $1 billion to fulfill the promise of becoming the largest source of nonprofit funds dedicated to the fight against breast cancer in the world.
From the 1940’s until recently, the rate of new cases of breast cancer in the United States increased by a little over one percent a year. In the 1980’s, the rate of new cases rose markedly, likely due to increased screening, and during the 1990’s, the rate of new cases leveled off. Recent data presented at the 2006 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium shows a steep rate of decline in new cases in 2003.
Although these statistics are encouraging, an estimated 178,480 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in American women in 2007 alone. In 1975, the incidence of breast cancer was 107 per 100,000 for white women and 94 per 100,000 for black women. Twenty-eight years later in 2003, the number of new cases per year had risen to 125 per 100,000 for white women and 116 per 100,000 for black women.
Even though incidence increased during that 28-year period, mortality for white women decreased. In 1975, 32 per 100,000 white women died of breast cancer, but by 2003, the figure had declined to 24.6. For black women, though, mortality increased over the same period, rising from 30 per 100,000 black women in the population in 1975 to 34.1 per 100,000 in 2003.
For more information about breast health or breast cancer, visit the Foundation’s award-winning Web site at www.komen.org or call the Foundation’s National Toll-Free Breast Care Helpline at 1.800 I’M AWARE? (1.800.462.9273).