The WCV is putting the spotlight on Breast Cancer Awareness this month. Breast cancer first touched my life when my aunt came to convalesce with us in the mid 1960s, after having a double mastectomy. She passed away within the year. My mother was stricken with it in her early 40s and the cancer eventually spread over her entire body. I therefore have much dread and anxiety whenever it’s time for a mammogram. I know that I am not alone in this fear. According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc., one in eight women in the US will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. Thankfully, when caught in it’s early stages, there is a five year relative survival rate. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. 15% of women have a family history of breast cancer and are twice as likely to develop breast cancer themselves. The average age of women diagnosed with breast cancer is 62 years. However, women who receive regular screenings for breast cancer have a 26% lower breast cancer death rate than women who do not receive screenings.
Sonja and Judy would like all of us to put our collective talents together to make padded seat belt covers for those women who have had mastectomies to make it more comfortable for them to travel in the car. We plan to start the project by cutting out patterns at our meeting and then finishing the project at Sonja’s school’s home economics classroom where there are several sewing machines at our disposal. More information will follow at the general meeting on October 9th.
Keep Track of Your Volunteer Hours
Please turn in your Volunteer Hours/Donations Tracking Form at our next general or evening meeting. Attendance at meetings and exercise routines can all be counted as hours. I am working with Sandi Leyva to create an electronic hours form that can be submitted online through our website. We should be ready to launch this program in the next month. The information is used at the end of the year to track our club members’ volunteer service and monetary contributions and is included in our award-winning club narratives. If you need a blank hours sheet to fill in, I am happy to email or mail you one. Thank you for taking the time to submit your hours!
