Aloha … from BetheGifford receives $40,000 Avon Foundation grant
RANDOLPH, Jan. 15, 2009 – Gifford Medical Center has been awarded an Avon Foundation Breast Care Fund grant for the eighth consecutive year. The only hospital in the state to receive the national award, Gifford has been granted $40,000 for 2009 to increase awareness of the life-saving benefits of early detection of breast cancer.
The Avon Foundation Breast Care Fund supports community-based, non-profit breast health programs across the country. Gifford was selected as one of 144 grant recipients nationwide. Organizations are chosen based on their ability to effectively reach women, particularly minority, low-income and older women, who are often medically underserved.
In 2008, Gifford, through the Avon Foundation’s generosity, reached 4,285 women during educational visits, a total estimated audience of more than 200,000 with the help of the media, and scheduled 571 women for mammograms – all numbers that significantly exceeded prior years.
Gifford’s outreach is done primarily by Breast Care Coordinator Jane Harrness, a mammography technologist, who speaks around the state about the importance of annual mammograms in detecting breast cancer early.
The grant – designated for outreach and education – makes her work possible.
“Gifford is proud and thankful to receive this grant. It is an immeasurable gift,” Harrness said. “We can help women access the health care system and learn the importance of taking care of themselves. Women are so thankful for the information on breast health that I am able to give them.”
Gifford and Harrness have historically used the funding to outreach to women where they live, work and socialize. That has meant numerous visits to senior centers and senior living facilities, public events and conferences, and Vermont’s women’s prisons and halfway houses.
Instrumental in Harrness’ efforts in 2008 was attendance at many of the state’s county fairs and the Vermont Farm Show in Barre – events that typically draw rural Vermonters.
This year, attendance at rural happenings, like the state’s fairs and this month’s farm show, will continue to be part of the hospital’s ongoing efforts to educate medically underserved women in Randolph, central Vermont and statewide – including a population of French-Canadian women living in the rural Northeast Kingdom – on the importance of mammograms and clinical breast exams.
The grant award also serves as a resource and motivation to reach media outlets with advertisements, public service announcements and news stories regarding breast health.
Among Gifford’s messages of late are promoting the state’s new affordable mammogram law, which went into effect on Oct. 1 and limited the out-of-pocket cost for a woman age 40 and over with Vermont insurance to just $25 or less.
The Randolph hospital is also a supporter of the Love/Army for Women, a national effort to have women sign up for breast cancer research initiatives. Any woman, except those in active cancer treatment, is encouraged to join at www.armyofwomen.org. The program includes e-mail alerts on upcoming scientific studies. Women who fit the parameters of a study are invited to participate.
Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in U.S. women, and the single leading cause of death overall in women between the ages of 40 and 55.
In Vermont last year, an estimated 470 new cases of female breast cancer cases were diagnosed and 90 women died from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.
Nationwide, there is a new diagnosis of breast cancer every three minutes and a death every 14 minutes.
While advances – including the new Love/Army of Women research strategy – have been made in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and working toward a cure for breast cancer, early detection still affords the best opportunity for successful treatment. According to the Avon Foundation, programs such as Gifford’s help ensure that all women, including the poor and medically underserved, have access to early detection information and options.
Since 1993, the Avon Foundation has awarded more than 1,100 grants to community-based breast health programs across the United States. These programs are dedicated to educating underserved women about breast cancer and linking them to early detection screening services.