Announcing our 2011-2012 Grantees

GREATER AMARILLO AFFILIATE OF SUSAN G. KOMEN FOR THE CURE®
AWARDS COMMUNITY GRANTS TO EDUCATE, SAVE LIVES

Breast Cancer Organization Funds Unmet Breast Cancer Needs
Throughout The Texas Panhandle Area

Amarillo, TX – March 30, 2011– Determined to save lives and end breast cancer forever, the Greater Amarillo Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure® has awarded 4 grants totaling $285,000.00 to programs providing breast cancer services in the Panhandle area.

 “To meet needs we have discovered right here in our community, this year’s grant slate specifically addresses women in the Panhandle by providing education, support, and services and properly fitted prosthesis; as well as mammograms to underserved and uninsured women,” said Executive Director, Lisa Hoff Davis.

The Komen Amarillo grants are important due to high incidents of mortality in several of the 26 counties including Gray, Hansford, Potter, Randall, Dallam, and Carson.  These counties are home to 67% of the Panhandle’s population while also representing high incidence and counties with service providers.  The counties are also adjacent to counties without service providers so the Affiliate can investigate rural versus urban obstacles to service.  The grantees will target women in these rural areas and focus on low income and minority women by educating, serving, and screening. 

The Komen Greater Amarillo Affiliate is part of the 125-Affiliate network of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s largest and most progressive grassroots network fighting to end breast cancer forever. The Affiliates are the face and voice of Komen for the Cure’s global breast cancer movement in communities around the world. Through local events and activities, the Komen Greater Amarillo Affiliate mobilizes and educates thousands of community members while raising funds to support community-based breast cancer programs.

In order to ensure it is funding programs that address the specific unmet breast cancer needs of the Panhandle community, the Komen Greater Amarillo Affiliate works with local health care professionals and community leaders to conduct a comprehensive community needs assessment. This community profile, a standard practice of all Komen Affiliates, is then used to establish a local grant application and review process consistent with the organization’s standards and mission.

For more information on the specific grants awarded, visit www.KomenAmarillo.org.

Last year, Susan G. Komen for the Cure Affiliates—working in concert with local organizations—awarded more than $80 million in needs-based community grants. That's in addition to the 25 percent of their income that Affiliates contribute toward the many millions the organization invests each year in promising research.

About Susan G. Komen for the Cure® and the Komen Greater Amarillo Affiliate
Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever, and in 1982, that promise became Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The Greater Amarillo Affiliate is part of the world’s largest and most progressive grassroots network fighting breast cancer. Through events like the Komen Greater Amarillo Race for the Cure, the Greater Amarillo Affiliate has invested almost $1.3 million in community breast cancer programs in 26 counties.  Up to 75 percent of net proceeds generated by the Affiliate stay in the Texas Panhandle, the remaining 25 percent funds national breast cancer research. For more information, call 806.354.9706 or visit www.KomenAmarillo.org.

2011-2012 Grant Programs

The Don & Sybil Harrington Cancer Center
$220,000.00
Breast Cancer Detection and Treatment Program
Funding from the Greater Amarillo Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure would be used to cover screening and diagnostic mammography, breast biopsy, breast MRI, and some treatment regimens for medically underserved women of all ages, who are not covered by other funding.  In addition, the project will continue to target women for diagnostic mammography who have high risk factors for breast cancer.

American Cancer Society
$10,000.00
Amarillo Breast Prosthesis and Lymphedema Accessory Program
The American Cancer Society's Reach to Recovery program provides a vital educational service to breast cancer patients in the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles.  Trained volunteers, who have had breast cancer, visit newly diagnosed patients, giving the patient emotional support, a kit containing a leisure bra, a lightweight temporary breast form, rehabilitative exercise educational information and treatment information.  Also, a guide of local establishments where breast prostheses and other specialty products, such as lingerie and swim wear, can be purchased is provided to patients.  .

Amarillo Area Breast Health Coalition
$12,000.00
WISE Woman
The purpose of the WISE Woman Program is to reach, educate, support and empower women to practice breast health and access low or no cost screening. The program targets medically underserved uninsured or under-insured, and ethnically diverse women living in rural Texas Panhandle. WISE Woman, using a “train the trainer” concept, selects and trains women in basic breast health practices that stress the value of screening and early detection. Education and training enables peer trainers to teach those of their own socio-economic status and geographic location, about breast health; to offer individualized support and assistance that overcome known obstacles to screening; to connect women eligible for mammograms to clinical providers. 

Moore County Hospital District
$43,000.00
MCHD Breast Cancer Screening & Education Program
The funds will be used to provide breast cancer screening, diagnostic follow-up and surgical treatment as well as community outreach and education to undeserved women in the Moore County and surrounding communities in the Texas Panhandle area.  The focus of this program is to decrease breast cancer mortality in the long term and increase awareness and knowledge of breast health, especially among minority groups.