Breast Cancer Rumble
Student Perspectives Series: Each semester, students of the Comm 350 (Digital Storytelling) class pick a campus event to create a multimedia review. Comm 350 is taught by Professor Anjuli Brekke and teaches students multimedia content creation skills. Through hands-on practice, students learn to put theories into action and to become a creative and effective storyteller in the digital media world.
The Zeta Epsilon chapter of Sigma Lambda Gamma National Sorority Inc. has a history of compassion and sympathy towards those who have suffered from breast cancer, as Breast Cancer Awareness is one of their Philanthropies. Many of their sisters have relatives that have fallen victim to the affliction, turning the subject from a tragic reality to a passion that they strive to spread to those around them. From the Breast Cancer Rumble to educating themselves and others on the reality of the disease, they have dedicated themselves to raise awareness of breast cancer awareness and help to ease the suffering of not only the patients, but their loved ones as well.
The sorority was originally founded by a group of Latina women who had a variety of passions, and philanthropies, with breast cancer becoming the main philanthropic project for the Zeta Epsilon chapter due to the large number of sorority members that have had relatives be diagnosed with breast cancer in the past. Raising awareness of breast cancer is not something that is done in word alone, the Zeta Epsilon chapter has a history of organizing a variety of events to help in their mission, particularly during the month of October, aka Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Unfortunately, they had to scale back these events due to the pandemic but have since begun to bring some of them back.
While the Breast Cancer Rumble event they recently held may not have been as large as their past efforts, it marks the beginning of a return to form. The representative that organized the most recent event has stated that the sorority is working hard on bringing the Breast Cancer Rumble event back to its full splendor in the near future and help to further spread awareness of a tragic condition that plagues hundreds of thousands of people every year.
This event was held on the bridge during prime-time traffic hours 11 am-1 pm, Monday, October 30th to cap off Breast Cancer Awareness month. The event was called “Breast Cancer Rumble'', and included three activity stations which students could participate in. These stations included a self-check stimulation station, messages of hope to survivors station, and the main event, bra-pong. The objective was to throw (under or overhand) ping-pong balls into the different tiers of bras ranging in difficulty by cup size.
Players were given three chances to shoot into the four tiers, the smaller the cup the greater the prize. During the duration of this event, we came across many different people that were either interested in playing a quick game to prove their immaculate precision or interested in a good cause and gaining awareness. Either way, everyone that participated in the event became more informed about Breast Cancer Awareness and self-examinations, which was the goal of the event. This also proves you can have a good time while raising awareness. Sigma Lambda Gamma provided a QR code within each prize that would inform individuals about how to self-examine and about racial disparities within breast cancer patients as far as treatment.
Black women are about 40% more likely to die of breast cancer than white women. Many women, from different backgrounds, have experienced breast cancer, whether that is directly or through association with a survivor or victim. Messages of hope were taped onto a window on the bridge for individuals to read as they passed by. Overall, this event was held to educate others in a fun and interactive way about a topic that can be traditionally hard to talk about, but impacts so many individuals. Sigma Lambda Gamma is proud of this event and the work they are doing within the Parkside community.