Sarah Glatz and Margot California will be sponsoring their third North Hills Cancer Awareness Week from February 23^rd-24^th. The girls increase awareness for cancer by selling bracelets during lunch and encouraging that students wear a different color each day of the week to show support different types of cancer. This year Sarah and Margot have also decided to share facts about cancer with the school. They will be hanging posters with the facts on them throughout the school.

The proceeds from the bracelets go to Our Club House (formerly known as Gilda’s Club). This organization provides free cancer support to patients and their families. They provide lectures and events for families to go to in order to get away from the hospital and interact with families who are in similar situations.

Cancer awareness is important to both Sarah and Margot as both their families have been affected by cancer. When Sarah was in second grade her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She got involved with Our Club House during this time. “I got involved with Our Club House when my mom had breast cancer and it was really helpful because I got to go to a lot of fun events and I knew that everyone there was sharing the same experience that I was.” Margot’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer for the third time when she was in sixth grade. Sadly, she passed away during the summer of 2010. “During her whole treatment we went to Our Club House to talk to people who were going through the same thing and to get away from the negative side of cancer and see that we could have fun with people going through the same situation.”

The feedback the girls have received for their campaign has been very positive. Margot explained how students and teachers helped support their campaign, “This year we did something new where we asked students for their stories and we were really glad so many students decided to share their stories with us because that’s not always easy. In past years I’ve also been surprised with the support we’ve gotten for the cancer wall and the number of people that bought bracelets.”

Aside from supporting Our Club House, an important part of Margot and Sarah’s cancer awareness campaign is just what it says, raising awareness. Sarah believes this is important since the emphasis is usually on finding a cure, “To some extent that dehumanizes cancer while this shows the human side. It shows how many people are emotionally affected by cancer.” It also, as Margot stressed, brings people together, “I think it’s important to make everyone aware that they are not the only one in our school or our community affected by cancer. Although it’s a bad thing many people are connected through that.”

Help raise support for cancer awareness this week by wearing the correlating colors to support each type of cancer and buying bracelets at lunchtime. This is the perfect opportunity for North Hills to show support for our friends, family, and each other by raising awareness.