Bladder Cancer Awareness Day

Fall 2010

Thanks to everyone who made our first-annual Bladder Cancer Awareness Day, on Saturday, July 17, 2010, such an incredible success!
Bladder cancer survivors, caregivers, and loved ones participated in 27 events in 18 states, including:

• 150 people at a dinner dance in Michigan;
• 100 people attending a series of presentations by doctors in Rochester, NY;
• 61 people picnicking on a ridge of the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina, sharing their experiences as survivors and caregivers;
• 57 people attending an educational event at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City;
• 40 people watching a screening of Living Downstream in Myrtle Beach, SC; and
• dozens at a San Francisco Giants baseball game that featured a scoreboard message about bladder cancer.

From the east coast to the west coast, and from Texas to Canada, more than twenty volunteers organized events for Bladder Cancer Awareness Day. We are very grateful to all of them for working so hard to make this new BCAN initiative such a success in alerting the media to the facts about bladder cancer, and bringing people together across the country to raise awareness.

Stories about bladder cancer were published or broadcast in 10 of the 18 states that hosted events. As part of the media surrounding Awareness Day, our national spokesperson, CBS Newsman Bob Schieffer, was interviewed for CBS Radio News and CBS Evening News. Bladder cancer was also featured for an hour on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show.

Awareness Day became a focal point for volunteers to write letters to the editors of their local papers. BCAN has compiled links to these letters and articles in our Bladder Cancer News page. We are thrilled by the enthusiasm of our Awareness Day volunteers and participants, and by the positive press the events have generated.

Learn more about ways you can raise awareness throughout the year.