This is the last week of October’s Breast Cancer Awareness campaign. Have you been meaning to show your breast cancer support for survivors but just haven’t found the time?
Skip the pink jelly beans this month and visit GoFundMe, a site that has created a platform for women to ask for help waging the fight for their lives against the disease.
Thanks to the shameful state of our health care system, even women who are fully insured face expenses throughout the course of their treatment, like co-pays and travel expenses, not to mention missed work and often having to find care for small children, that can cripple even the most financially stable families.
So GoFundMe, an already established personal fundraising site that has raised $2 million per day for personal causes, has become a place where women who need to raise money for their breast cancer treatment can turn.
One look at these women and you realize every donation — no matter how small — helps them get through the next day, the next treatment, the next surgery. And it doesn’t get more personal than these stories.
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Bogart is a young wife and mother who started chemo on Sept. 29. She looks like every other lady you see dropping off her kids at school, except she’s in the fight of her life.
Her friend Lori started the GoFundMe page, and to-date it has raised just over $2,600 from 27 of her friends and family.
Kinda makes those bright-pink NFL gear accessories seem ridiculous, doesn’t it? And according to the Washington Post, only about 12.5 percent of the funds raised through the NFL’s breast cancer awareness sales actually go to breast cancer research. GoFundMe collects a 5 percent fee on donations, leaving the other 95 percent to be spent on breast cancer treatments and care.
Steph, Prissy and Shauna
There are many more women on GoFundMe just like Elizabeth. Too many. There’s Steph and Team Prissy, raising money to help a mother of three small kids fight like hell against an aggressive breast cancer diagnosis. And Shauna will shave her mom’s head on video when her GoFundMe page reaches its $10,000 goal.
Walking in a pink shirt, buying pink socks and a matching visor — all of these things are nice. But if you’re interested in throwing your support behind the women who are living every single day in the grip of breast cancer, GoFundMe is a great best place to start.
If you or someone you know is interested in starting a GoFundMe page to help someone fighting breast cancer, here’s more info on how to get started.
www.youtube.com/embed/ADrc7JSs_5s
More on the fight against breast cancer
Breast cancer kills more black than white women
Joan Lunden reveals breast cancer battle
Electronic skin being developed to better detect breast cancer
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