I grew up with the pink ribbons and the races. One of my earliest memories involves going to Race for the Cure and checking out vendor booths. Mimicking my older relatives, I took a turn squeezing what years later I realized was a prosthetic breast, to be placed in a bra after a mastectomy.
Komen ingrained themselves deeply into the breast cancer world. They are synonymous with the pink ribbon and breast cancer itself. They surely realized that when a loved one is affected, you will do anything if you think it will help stop their pain. And when it just wasn’t meant to be, you will do anything to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. All they needed to do was create a community, make it uplifting and valuable to participants, sell them pink trinkets… and profit.



