It is the global leader of the breast cancer movement and it has succeeded in gathering over $1.5 billion that were invested in this cause. The name of the foundation is given by the name of a person who suffered from breast cancer , but unfortunately she died after three years of difficult and hard battle with the cancer. Susan G. Komen was a breast cancer patient and a fighter, but she did not win the battle. however, even though she was sick herself, she could not stop worrying about the other suffering people around her and tried to help them every way she could.
That is why , two years after her death in 1980, her sister Nancy G. Brinker started this foundation and named it after her only sister who died because of breast cancer. She promised her sister that she would do everything in her power to find a cure for this disease and she felt this was the only right to keep her promise.
Nancy is now the CEO of this organization and a breast cancer survivor herself. She explains why she started the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (this was the original name) by saying that she feels her sister would have had better surviving chances if she had known more about this disease, if she had discovered the cancer sooner and, of course, if there were better drugs to help her in the fight against breast cancer. Now the organization changed its name into Susan G. Komen for the Cure and this new name suggest their main purpose: of finding a cure for this disease.
Nowadays the organization is very large and it has 125 affiliates both in the United States and also all over the world and there are over 100.000 volunteers working there on a regular basis. It is considered to be one of the most trusted organizations in US that does not take any gains from its activity, but on the contrary - finances breast cancer research. The foundation awards a lot of grants for breast cancer research every year and also organizes breast cancer awareness races.
The woman who started all this fight against breast cancer saw her sister dying of breast cancer when she was only 33 and then fought against the disease herself. That is why she has an inside view on the problem and that is why she does not want other people to suffer from the same thing.
And even if the main purpose is financing the research with the hope of finding a cure for breast cancer, they also consider awareness campaigns very important. They organize these campaigns all over the world telling people what to do and how to recognize the first signs of breast cancer, and encouraging them to have regular checkups and do everything in their power for an early diagnostic that can be life saving.
Susan G. Komen and her sister - Nancy