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Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, that she would
do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever.
Susan G. Komen for the Cure® is fighting every minute of every day to finally,
once and for all, finish what we started and achieve our vision of a world
without breast cancer.
Every major advance in the fight against breast cancer has been touched in
some way by a Komen Grant.
25 Years of Achievements
For the past 25 years, Komen for the Cure has played a critical role in every
major advance in the breast cancer movement. Because of the organization's
efforts to establish the importance of early detection in finding and treating
breast cancer, nearly 75 percent of women over the age of 40 now receive regular
screening mammograms, compared to just 30 percent in 1982. Before the organization
was founded, the five-year survival rate for breast cancer, when diagnosed before
it spreads beyond the breast, was just 74 percent. Today, it is 98 percent.
Komen is perhaps most widely known for its signature event, the Komen Race for
the Cure - arguably the most successful fundraising and education event for breast
cancer ever created. Brinker created the Race series as a way to educate the public
about breast cancer while raising funds to discover and deliver the cures. The
first Race took place in 1983 in Dallas with 800 participants, many of whom wore
pink to symbolize the breast cancer movement for the first time.
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This photograph was taken by Kathryn Stites for a contest sponsored by The Department of
Education, Arts & Culture and the Chattanooga Housing Authority. Click on the picture for full story.
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