A student ties a pink band around her wrist and goes on about her day.  She notices other students in class sporting the same pink band.  It may be a small gesture, but students are pulling together this month to support breast cancer awareness. 

This is the second year that student government has brought breast cancer awareness to the halls of Troy, and they hope that the second time will be even better than the first.  Last year students raised over $1500 by selling t-shirts, wristbands and pizza. This year StuGo hopes to beat that record.  Will Dale, senior, is this year’s chairman of the committee running the fundraiser. He said the group decided to do it again because it was so successful last year, and this time the cause hits even closer to home.

“We have someone on StuGo who lost a family member to this disease, and it gives us an even better reason to raise money and support,” Dale said.

The group plans on selling pink bracelets, t-shirts, and asking for general donations to meet their goal set earlier in the year.

“At the StuGo retreat this year we decided our goal was to raise over $1800 to be donated to the American Cancer Society for breast cancer research,” Dale said. “So far we have been pretty successful, so I hope we can meet that goal, if not beat it.” 

Along with the students,  doors around the building will also be getting a pink makeover. Trojan Time classes are decorating their doors with ribbons and hearts and anything else pink they can think of to win the competition. Judges will pick the best overall, most creative, and most informational and the winning classes will be rewarded with doughnuts. Emily Caryl, student government sponsor, said she thinks the door-decorating contest is a good way to get the students involved.

“This competition is for everyone in the school, it is a good, competitive way to get the students involved,” Caryl said. 

StuGo is planning to have another big showing of support and awareness by promoting the “pink out” football game on Oct. 23. 

“The goal of the pink out game is to have everyone really show their support and wear either something pink or the t-shirts we have sold. The cheerleaders as well as the band are wearing pink ribbons, and we hope the students will take part in it also” Caryl said.

Caryl said she is glad the student government is doing all that they are to raise money and awareness for such a good cause.

“It’s important for us to show the students that breast cancer is out there,” Caryl said. “It’s important for the school to realize how this disease hurts families, and do everything we can to help fight it.”