Eileen Rozens, a freshman at HEHS, spent her Thursday and Friday taking photos of people holding up a sign she made for breast cancer awareness. 

According to BreastCancer.org, breast cancer accounts for 12.5% of all new annual cancer cases worldwide, making it the most common cancer in the world. Knowing this, “something should’ve been happening,…and this was something to do. I couldn’t do much but that was just one of the things I could do,” said Rozens.

“When I asked them to take a photo, they didn’t even know that it was breast cancer awareness month,” she added.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among U.S. women. About 30% of all newly diagnosed cancers in women each year are breast cancer. And yet, most students weren’t even aware that it was breast cancer awareness month.

“I remember having a leftover pink poster and I just made two posters out of that saying Breast Cancer Awareness,” said Rozens.

She gave the other poster to her friend and they went around taking photos, a simple task that amounts to a noble effort. It didn’t take much effort, but it took a lot of courage and she did what no one else would.

About 13% (about 1 in 8) of U.S. women are going to develop invasive breast cancer in the course of their life.

“It’s only talked about during that month or that day that’s it’s dedicated to it, we should be actively trying to help and not just for the sake of that month,” said Rozens.

It’s  nice that we have a month dedicated to breast cancer awareness, but that does not mean we should stop being aware of the problem after the month has concluded. It isn’t fair to the millions of women who currently struggle with breast cancer every day.