by Jennifer Kowalewski

Earlier this year Community Service Programs (CSP) received a $54,000 grant from the Columbus affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Founded in 1982, the Komen Foundation funds innovative cancer research and community outreach programs as well as diagnostic efforts. The main goal of the organization is to eradicate breast cancer as a life-threatening illness.

“The Komen grant helps us reach women we otherwise may not have been able to,” says CSP Director Kathy Trace, R.N. The grant helps fund the Healthy Adult Project, which has provided free breast exams for uninsured or underinsured women over the past five years. The project’s outreach covered 13 counties in Southeastern Ohio, largely through the use of CSP’s Mobile Health Unit.

The Komen Foundation has hosted the Race for the Cure^® in Columbus for more than a decade; this year the event is set for Saturday, May 20. The 5K Run/Walk and One-Mile Fun Walk take place in downtown Columbus. The race is one of the national foundation’s annual fundraisers, and this is the 14^th year the race has taken place in Columbus. OU-COM has put together a team to participate in the event for several years now, and this year is no exception.

“Being in the Race for the Cure is one way we can show our support and appreciation for all that the Komen Foundation does in this area” says Trace.

The 5K Run/Walk begins at 9 a.m., and the One-Mile Fun Walk starts at 9:45 a.m. A Survivor Celebration and Awards Ceremony will be held at 10:45 a.m.

Anyone interested in participating in the race or just learning more about it should contact CSP’s Janice Smith at (740) 593-2432. If you plan on participating, race officials suggest that you arrive before 8:15 a.m. that day.

“The event is very important to us,” says Melanie Moynan-Smith, CSP nurse practitioner. “There are survivors and people walking in memory of relatives who have succumbed to breast cancer. They will have signs saying they are walking in memory of their mother, daughter, grandmother or wife. One year I walked beside a woman who talked about her breast cancer. It helped me understand that mothers everywhere must face the question, ‘Will I be there for my children?’”  

In the past year, the Southeast Ohio Breast and Cervical Cancer Project, which the foundation’s grant also supports, helped five women with breast cancer and two with cervical cancer.

“These were five lives that probably wouldn’t have been saved, because they didn’t have insurance,” Moynan-Smith says. “These women are extremely grateful for our clinics and Komen Foundation. Our breast and cervical cancer screening clinic schedules are always full.”

The project also allows for health educators to teach teenagers in schools the importance of breast exams. In the past year, CSP has reached out to more than 1,000 females at health fairs, in schools and via the Mobile Health Unit, Trace says.

“We want to reach out to more communities to screen and educate more people in Southeastern Ohio,” Trace says.

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• Cora Muñoz, Ph.D., continues Minority Health Month speaker series Wednesday, April 26

• D.O. Day on Capitol Hill takes OOA President Bitonte and OU-COM students to Washington, D.C.

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• 2006 ‘Student’D.O.C. Awards honor faculty, staff and students

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• Social Work Chairman Greenlee continues Minority Health Month presentations with ‘Appalachian Cultural Competence’ Tuesday at noon

• H. Paul Kim, D.O. (’94), is the final speaker for Career Medical Specialties Week

• D.O.C. Awards held Wednesday evening in Irvine 194

• Annual Kenyan Children’s Fund Benefit to be held Thursday, April 20, at 6 p.m.