by Carla Saavedra-Santiago

For the seventh consecutive year, Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Community Health Programs (CHP) has received a grant from the Columbus affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure (formerly known as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation). The grant helps fund CHP’s Healthy Adult Project.

The Komen Columbus grant, which increased from $54,000 last year to about $70,000 this year, helps fund free breast examinations and clinical services to uninsured or underinsured women.

The grant also supports the Healthy Adult Project’s educational programs, some of which help promote breast cancer awareness and self help among the school-age women.

“One of our goals is early education in the schools, so young women can integrate breast self exams into their lifestyles,” says Kathy Trace, R.N., director of CHP.

Janice Smith, Healthy Adult Project coordinator, talks to young women at area high schools about breast health. She teaches them how to perform breast self examinations and emphasizes the importance of monthly breast self exams.

“It’s a good habit to get into for the rest of their lives,” Smith says.

Along with presentations, Smith hands out a brochure with stories of women as young as 20 who were diagnosed with breast cancer. Smith also provides a shower card, which has detailed instructions on how to do a breast self exam.

“It is more unusual for someone that young to get breast cancer, but it does happen,” she says.

Through CHP’s Mobile Health Unit, the project provides clinical services to 13 counties in Southeastern Ohio that would otherwise be unavailable.

This past year, Komen funding allowed the project to provide clinical exams for 325 women and paid for thousands of dollars worth of mammograms as well as provide breast education to more than 2,000 women and 400 students.

“Komen has helped us reach thousands of women,” says Trace.

The grant also pays for mammograms and health education programs in senior centers and public locales.

In addition to free breast screenings and education, the Healthy Adult Project refers women to the Breast and Cervical Cancer Project (BCCP), which also provides funding for health services such as mammograms and ultrasounds.

“If something abnormal is found in the mammogram, BCCP will take care of treatments,” Smith says.

The Healthy Adult Project also provides free diabetes, hypertension and heart disease screenings.

The 2007 Columbus Komen Race for the Cure will be held May 19. The Race for the Cure^® is the organization’s main fundraising event. Last year, a record-setting number of race participants — nearly 32,000 — generated more than $1.5 million to fund local grants and national research. Another recording-setting number — more than 35,000 — are expected to participate in the 15th anniversary race, which is held in downtown Columbus. For more information, please call the Columbus affiliate hotline at (614) 297-8155 or email info@komencolumbus.org or race@komencolumbus.org. You also can contact CHP at (740) 593-2432.

This year, Komen Columbus gave almost $1.2 million — almost doubling last year’s record of $663,843 — to 35 breast cancer programs, which serve more than 85,000 women, ages 15 and older, in a 23-county area. It has raised nearly $9 million since it began in 1993.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure was founded as a promise from Nancy G. Brinker to her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, that she would try to find a cure for breast cancer. Susan G. Komen for the Cure was founded in 1982 and has invested nearly $1 billion in cancer research and community outreach programs. The organization has become the largest source of nonprofit funds solely dedicated to fighting breast cancer.