GFD makes donation for local breast cancer patients

After selling breast cancer awareness T-shirts in September, Graham Fire Department and its auxiliary made a donation last week to Graham Regional Medical Center to help provide for those who need support locally.

The department has been selling T-shirts since 2010 as a fundraiser to support local breast cancer patients.

“We want to help our community to the best of our ability,” GFD firefighter Cole Epperson said. “Breast cancer seems to be something that hits the community pretty hard and we just want to do our part to do something to help. …(We) partnered with Graham Regional (Medical Center) because they see all the patients that we don’t see and they are able to better help and suit their needs with the money we’ve raised.”

Epperson said the department comes up with a design, prints the design on a shirt and sells the shirts online as the fundraising effort. The department raised almost $900 and the GFD auxiliary made up the difference to bring the total donation to $1,000 for local patients at GRMC.

“This is important because not everyone can afford to come in for a screening mammography every year,” GRMC CEO Shane Kernell said. “Typically, October is the screening month that’s most utilized and some folks just don’t have the money to either pay for it or… (their) insurance (will) not pay the deductible for it if there is a deductible. So this will be hugely beneficial and we’ll keep it local for the women in Young County that need this.”

Firefighter Cole Carlin said that it was in the last five or six years that the department made the determination to keep the funding local to benefit women in Young County.

“For a while they were sending the money to Susan G. Komen (breast cancer foundation), but we found that it is probably more suited to have the money stay local and provide services to local women instead of going to a large national foundation,” he said.