First Company Pink Raises Awareness About Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer. Even the words on paper incite a reaction wrought with emotion. Whether fear, anger, pain or distress, the thought forces one to react.�In 2010, Donna Cioffi decided to combat the fear and encourage women to take up arms against the ravenous disease. Shortly after launching the Long Island based not-for-profit organization, First Company Pink, she met Linda Bonanno, and suggested that, based on her family history, she should get checked.

Little did they know that they would meet a year later, Cioffi on a mission to grow her organization and Bonanno newly diagnosed and facing treatment. Bonanno would later recover and join forces with Cioffi and eventually serve as the Creative Director of the got checked?� campaign.

Bonded by their story of survival, Cioffi and Bonanno are on a laser-focused mission to help eradicate the disease and bring awareness to the needs of the approximately 13,000 women under 40 who are diagnosed with breast cancer annually. Because the numbers pale in comparison to women over 40 who are stricken with the disease, research is underfunded and the survival rates for young sufferers of breast cancer are far lower.

Also impacting the mortality rate are the overwhelming cases of delayed diagnosis of breast cancer in younger women. And while a steady 2 percent increase is currently being tracked in our youth, First Company Pink aims to change the breast cancer culture one pink ribbon at a time.

Now in its sixth year, First Company Pink has announced, the got checked?� campaign which strives to put breast cancer on top of one's mind every day, not just for the 31 days in October.

"By providing young women a directive to 'get checked' and posing it as a question, it forces an immediate response that leads to changed behavior," notes Bonanno.

The got checked?� campaign is four-pronged and encourages young women to proactively fight breast cancer by scheduling a mammogram (accompanied by a sonogram), knowing your family history and risks, knowing what is normal for your body and not ignoring your body's signs.

"When you receive regular phone calls from young women with new diagnoses, you realize that what is being done to inform women about their risks is simply not enough" said Cioffi.

To drive home the�campaign's key points and spread the news about testing for young women, Cioffi and Bonnano have partnered with up and coming pop and hip hop artists to roll out powerful anthems accompanied by music videos for young women fighting the disease, designed a fitness collection and created a soon to be released book titled "Decode Your Future."

The publication, suitable for teenagers but also engaging to adults, is packed with facts, statistics and insight on health, fitness, nutrition, and spirituality. Ultimately the First Company Pink sees the publication being used in schools throughout the United States to begin educating young women (and men) on what to look for, how often to be tested and early detection through education.

With New York's Suffolk County already working to create an official got checked?� Day, and the women working closely with county legislators to lower the mammogram age from 45 to 40, the movement is growing and both Linda and Donna will continue to be the forces behind the movement that asks one of the most important questions in early detection.�

"Filling the gap between puberty and 40 is what we do and First Company Pink declares that this army will leave no woman behind!" said Bonanno.