Breast cancer awareness in Los Angeles

The plan to wear pink shirts from Oct. 25 to Oct. 30 was unveiled Monday at Pasadena Fire Station 34.

Firefighters carried axes, performed their daily exercise regime and posed for the camera in pink T-shirts, during a press conference to announce the plan.

All of Pasadena bravest have Tray Sorensen to blame for the bright pink T-shirts. He cooked up the idea to have the department wear pink to raise cancer awareness.

"I have two daughters 7 and 6, and if for no reason but them not having to deal with cancer when they're older, I wanted to do this," he said.

What Sorensen did, was get some slight modifications to Pasadena Fire Department's strict uniform policy. He went straight to Fire Chief Dennis Downs to ask whether the policy could be relaxed for a week, allowing firefighters to drop the dark blue in favor of wearing a bright pastel shirt. Sorensen found a surprising level of support as nearly every firefighter he met "knew someone affected by cancer."

"It's rare to meet someone who hasn't be touched by cancer, and that made getting people on board for this effort easy," Sorensen said.

Downs was an early disciple of the pink T-shirt push. Firefighters face a higher cancer risk than the general population because of their exposure to toxic gases, Down said.

"Anything we can do to keep our members healthy we will do," he said. "And anything we can do to raise awareness in the community and keep our community healthy we will also do."

Breast cancer is the leading killer on women in California and especially women ages 25-60 in Los Angeles County, said Linda Pura, co-founder of the Los Angeles affiliate of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. The Los Angeles affiliate has raised more than $7 million toward cancer research.

She and the foundation partnered with the Pasadena Fire Department on the pink T-shirt effort, which Pura said maybe one of the best ways to educate the public about cancer.

"They are so integral in the community and have so much contact with the community," she said. "They get the word out with those big red trucks and they are in the schools where they get to talk to kids."

Pasadena Fire isn't cornering the market on its snazzy pink T-shirts. The department is selling the T-shirts at its stations, with all the proceeds going to the Komen Foundation, Down said.

The Pasadena City Council also plans to take action at its Oct. 25 meeting to endorse the efforts of both the Fire Department and the Komen Foundation.

brian.charles@sgvn.com

626-578-6300, ext. 4494

(source:pasadenastarnews.com)