I am happy to say that I am a sixteen year breast cancer survivor and plan to stay a survivor with your help.

My solicitation this year carries a little more weight and urgency.  Recently we have seen grumblings of cutting funding to organizations that provide services to women for the early detection of breast cancer, services for those that are going through treatment for breast cancer, and services for survivors.  Some women’s only resource for these services are those same organizations that are being threatened.  Avon, with your continued support, provides these services to women in underserved communities. 

In 2016, your support helped Avon fund “access to care programs” which provided patients with nearly 437,000 educational contacts, and enabled access to 248,000 mammograms and other diagnostics.  Programs provided more than 129,000 patient navigation services to over 70,000 medically underserved individuals. Findings demonstrate that Patient Navigation works best in low resource hospital systems, where barriers to healthcare exist. Navigators help patients to overcome these challenges including lack of transportation, insurance or finances.

I have participated in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer since 2003 to bring this disease to an end for both my family and yours and I will walk again this year as part of the AVON Walk for Breast Cancer.

I was saved through a mammogram and great medical care.  I walk to give everyone the opportunity to receive the same great care that I did.  I walk so that my two children will not have to go through what I did and that their children will not have to watch their mother go through cancer as they did. 

I humbly ask for your support.