Business Breast Cancer Boost

Women who start their own businesses are admirable, but starting one to give back to the community is something worth celebrating.

Pauline Alighieri started the business-turned-nonprofit Friends of Mel, which sells $15 bracelets to benefit breast cancer. The idea came about when her co-worker and friend Mel Simmons was diagnosed and eventually lost her life to the disease.

“Mel was an unbelievably generous spirit,” Alighieri tells PINK. “She was constantly giving. That’s just who she was.” With a goal of $5,000 she was shocked when her business raised $300,000 in six months. The bracelets have now been sold in 50 states and six countries. “I had no idea where I wanted to go with this [business],” says Alighieri. “It just kind of picked me up and carried me along. But I hear about all the challenges people face with this illness, and I know I have to keep going.”

After her mother and grandmother died of breast cancer at 51, Jo-Anne Perkins (who celebrates her 53rd birthday this month) decided to use her job at a trashcan manufacturer to aid in the cause. She began selling pink trashcans and donating $5 of every purchase to breast cancer awareness. She recently partnered with the American Cancer Society and aims to raise $500,000.

Bonus PINK Link:Is the environment a factor in breast cancer risk? Find out here.

By Caroline Cox

“The most important thing in illness is never to lose heart.” Nikolai Lenin