Breast Cancer Fundraising - Supporting a personal cause

I am an Evite influencer and this is a post sponsored by Evite. Proceeds for this post will be donated to Breast Cancer Awareness. All opinions and experiences are my own. For further information, please visit our disclosures, page.

We all have charities that are important to us. For me it is breast cancer awareness. To understand why, you probably need to know a little more about me. One of the most life changing things that ever happened to me occurred 25 years ago. I was 19 when my mom, who was then only 39, died from breast cancer. It wasn’t long after that I lost my grandmother, mom’s mom. Again breast cancer was responsible.

As a result of this experience breast cancer was thrust into my life at a very early age. I have had yearly mammograms since turning 30 and a number of scares along the way. I quickly realized that all women, even young women, can be affected by breast cancer. Since then it has become important to me to raise awareness about the importance of self examination and raise money to further develop cancer detection & treatments. I want my children, and yours, to have their moms around to share in their lives.

You now have some idea of what breast cancer means to me. In this blog post I want to talk about a couple of things, how you can make donations and a fun way you can raise awareness for a charity.

Donations to breast cancer charities make a difference. We’ve come so far, I wonder now if my mom, in her mid 30’s, got breast cancer now, would she have died? Perhaps not, because maybe, just maybe it might have been detected earlier through new screening processes, or maybe one of the treatments available now might have been the one that kicked her cancer’s butt.

Every $ we donate can help detect someone else’s cancer a little sooner, or develop a new treatment to eradicate it.

There are several ways to donate to a charity. I’m extremely proud to be an Evite Influencer and be able to share Evite Donations with you. This is a new way to get $ to the charities you care about. Evite partnered with Pledgling in September in 2015 and together they have raised $1 million dollars for causes like breast cancer! The goal is to raise a second million over the holiday period.

It is super easy to use and allows you the option to accept charitable donations instead of or as well as normal gifts. I don’t know about you, but my kids don’t need all of the gifts they get at their birthday parties.

Knowing how important this charity is to me, they can now contribute and help me raise money for breast cancer too by including the option to donate in lieu of gifts in their invitations.

It is also a great way to raise donations when you are hosting a charitable event. With Breast Cancer Awareness month on now, in October, I used Evite donations when I invited friends to a fun after school charity event. It was easy (see my screen above & step by step to the right) to link my charity to the invite with a quick search.

This year I threw a pink holi powder party for breast cancer. The kids and their parents came over after school and we got to “throw out breast cancer” quite literally! Throwing pink holi powder at each other….it was a lot of fun and a really easy party to organize and host.

A holi powder party is such a fun way to support a cause. A lot of charities now have a color associated with them and you can get the powder in a range of colors.

Holi powder is non toxic, biodegradable, skin safe and environmentally friendly! We had our holi fun in the backyard which was pink by the end! I just hosed it down (or you can wait for rain) and wah-lah back to normal, no harm, no foul.

Similarly with the kids, I brushed most of it off while they were still dry (it is a bit like colored corn flour so you can literally dust it off) and then their bath/shower cleaned up any hard to reach areas.

The kids had the best time, hysterical laughter, working out sibling rivalry, and a bit of boys vs. girls. We watched it all unfold and it was safe and did no harm. Best of all no one was forgetting the very PINK cause!

The holi powder comes in small bag sizes, you could easily add stickers or labels for your cause onto these. Again emphasising the cause. I transferred mine to new white bags with a pink trim, just do it outside so any stray powder dust (think writing on a chalkboard) doesn’t end up around the house.

Another thing I really like about Holi powder, it was originally used in the Rangwali Holi festival – a free-for-all carnival of colours, where people play, chase and colour each other with the dry powder and coloured water. The festival is meant to signify the victory of good over evil, the arrival of spring, end of winter, and for many, a festive day to meet others, play and laugh, forget and forgive, and repair broken relationships. So to me the original intent fits so well with a charitable event.

Ready to cause havoc!

A twinkle in his eye, he’s after his sister!

The girls are scheming!

Sibling Wars

I have no words!

They won’t forget this in a hurry

We actually left the bulk of the pink in my sons hair and he went to school the next day sporting his temporary do. This raised alot of questions and I’m really proud of my kids now spreading the message of awareness and raising money for breast cancer.

An alliance is formed, watch out Harrison

Gotcha

Blonde becomes pink

The kids were going crazy and our $ donations were handled! So the parents that joined me & other friends via social media & my invite pulled together items that we could donate to women going through breast cancer treatment. There are several organizations that distribute these gifts (e.g. Breast Cancer Freebies and Susan G Komen) as well as provide help to you if you are looking to host a fund raising event.

My mom spent a lot of time at the hospital, as did we sometimes, even sleeping in her room. We all did. If you are looking to donate items rather than a cash donation, consider the following thoughtful gifts. I’ve added in links to some of my friends who donated to my care kits or are party of the teams that donate kits to hospitals.

Pyjamas – front fastening
Natural beauty products (Udderly Smooth)
Craft kits (Laura Kelly)
Herbal teas
Slippers
Cosy blankets, bought (Tourance) or hand knitted!
Books & magazines
Box sets or netflix vouchers

Also consider your time as the most precious gift. Drop their kids to and from school, prepare meals and handwritten letters. Those can mean the world to moms going through treatment.

The last thing I did was give all of my girlfriends a card (and extras) that my friend Kim at Small Moments Design created (you can find them here). This is a sweet reminder to hand out to your friends, asking them to get a mammogram. The world is better with your friends in it!

Please consider adding a donation to your next party through Evite Donations and or consider hosting your own breast cancer awareness party. It’s is a great cause. Until next time, keep celebrating and don’t forget to have that mammogram, or remind a special lady in your life too.

Nat x