It's that time of year again! Time to focus on education, prevention, and research around breast cancer. Time to do our part to save lives!
What is BoobieThon in SL?
This year marks the 5th year that Lady Twilight, Serra Anansi, and I have been leading wonderful groups of volunteers to raise money to help in the fight against breast cancer. It all started 5 years ago when Serra happened to IM me about a very funny product for which she had just seen an advert. That product was called, Boob Lube. Go ahead, search for it. The product is promoted by several breast cancer awareness groups in an effort to help women remember to perform their monthly self breast exams. Anyway, Serra was enjoying the ad for Boob Lube co much that she had to share it with me. She and I talked about that for a while and I told her that it reminded me of a tongue-in-cheek approach to breast cancer research fund-raising called BoobieThon. This was a group of bloggers who had been raising money for a few years by posting pictures of, both covered and uncovered, breasts online for the first week of October. All proceeds were sent to Susan G. Komen Foundation. It was at this point that we began to hatch our plans to be a part of this irreverent and fun approach to raising money. We we do so in-world. There are quite a few places to read about our BoobieThon events - I will simply direct you to a couple of links on my own blog and on the BoobieThon page.
We have recently begun sketching out plans for the BoobieThon in SL events for this year. Oct 1-7 remain the dates. Due to changes at both Boobie-Thon (in RL) and Komen, we have changed our named fund-raising beneficiary this year.
Our charity is Feel Your Boobies Foundation.
This foundation happens to be local to my typist and was created after the founder discovered a lump in her own breast at a very young age while performing her monthly self-exam. This saved her life. To quote the foundation's website:
THE FOUNDATION & MISSIONThe Feel Your Boobies Foundation focuses on one simple mission (and we have since 2004): using media and other unconventional outreach to remind young women to ‘feel their boobies’. Over the past few years, provocative breast cancer slogans have become more popular…and while we’re all about a good chuckle, we’d like to make sure our supporters know that we’re more than a funny slogan. Feel Your Boobies® is a call to action that reminds you about a habit that can increase your chances of early detection and potentially save your life.
Why focus solely on the use media to spread or message? That’s simple. Since 2004, this campaign has run out of our Founder, Leigh’s, home in a small town in Pennsylvania. With a shoestring budget and a few dedicated volunteers and workers, Feel Your Boobies has reached an international audience with its message and saved lives (read our testimonials!). Media (social media specifically) makes this possible. With over 300K “likes” on facebook and more than 1Million Cause supporters…we’re certainly making waves from this tiny PA town.
Why focus primarily on young women? For women who are pre-mammogram age (under 40), “feeling your boobies” is one of the primary ways to get to know your body and detect changes in your breasts. Even as you get older, this habit can help in making sure you identify a change in your breast as soon as it occurs and bring it to your doctor’s attention. Should the change be breast cancer, early detection is the primary way to increase your chances of surviving this disease.
We hope that you will join the fun - and the hard work - again this year to raise money for BoobieThon in SL 2012. Please notecard either Serra (Serra Anansi) or me (Eva Bellambi) in world if you would like to volunteer to create or host an event during this week of fund-raising. Whether you can volunteer in that capacity or not, please do plan on attending several of the fun events during the week (a preliminary list of events may be found below), bring friends, and bring your spirit of giving.
Let's educate men and women about breast cancer and about how they can save their own lives by the simple act of feeling their boobies at least once a month.
See you there!!
Preliminary Events Listing (final event schedule to be determined)
- Opening Night Party
- Art Auction (all week)
- Poetry Slam
- Limerick Contest
- Educational Salons and Static Displays
- Special BoobieThon Product Vendors
- The 5th Annual Boobie Balls
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