For Hub City Times

STEVENS POINT – In addition to fighting fires, Stevens Point firefighters are sporting the color pink throughout October, in efforts to fight breast and other cancers; except Fridays, when they wear red to support fellow brothers and sisters serving and deployed in the military.

Fire fighters exposed to carcinogens and other chemicals while on the job are disproportionately diagnosed with breast cancer – just one of many cancers linked to the work firefighters do. With one in eight women diagnosed each year, an estimated 300,000 new cases of breast cancer and 46,000 deaths will be reported in 2019. Among all women affected, 85 percent have no family history.

“Fire Fighters are motivated to get involved for many reasons, and often it’s because they have been personally affected by the disease,” says Jason Pettis, a fire fighter with the Stevens Point Fire Department and a director of Stevens Point Fire Fighters Local 484 Charitable Foundation. “We are supporting breast cancer awareness and prevention by encouraging others to give so that no breast cancer patient goes without life-saving treatments or having hope for a cure. Everyone is at risk for breast cancer.”

Your Stevens Point firefighters encourage everyone in this community to participate in breast cancer awareness and prevention activities. They will be selling pink shirts at Station 1, 1701 Franklin Street, through the month of October. Proceeds this year will help cover medical expenses for one of their colleagues who is battling breast cancer.

For more information, contact the Stevens Point Fire Fighters Local 484 Charitable Foundation at [email protected].