Business: Brenda’s Pink Sneakers

Posted by Brenda Larson Business Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Story & photo by Brenda Larson

Cary, NC – These are my pink sequin Chucks.

Bet you didn’t see that coming, did you? But I’m wearing the pink sequin Chucks for a good reason. I’m hoping that my pink sequin Chucks (let’s call them PSCs, just to make it easy) will motivate my friends and colleagues in Cary’s business community to get their own pink on.

The Cause: Curing Cancer

The week of June 6 to 12 will be Go Pink for the Cure in Cary Week and I’m going to do what I can to encourage local businesses to pinkify (is that a word?) to help raise awareness for the Susan G. Komen Triangle NC Race for the Cure on June 12 at Meredith College, 3800 Hillsborough St., Raleigh.

The event will bring runners and walkers of all ages together to help raise funds for breast cancer research. There’s a competitive 5k event, a fun run, a women’s only run, in addition to a celebration of survivors. It’s a touching, incredible event.

There’s also an amazing photo exhibit in Raleigh that you don’t want to miss. There’s info on all of these components to this year’s race at the website.

Going Pink in Cary

My good pal, Kevin Boyd, has been a longtime Triangle affiliate volunteer and, this year, he asked me to help him with his work. He’s leading the Go Pink for the Cure awareness week campaign. When he asked me to help, I knew the business community in Cary would rally around the cause, because Cary cares.

Within minutes of sending out my first email, I had a response from Joy Pike, who works at Apple Auto Insurance on East Chatham Street. “Send me posters,” she said. “We’ll display them. And the staff will wear pink that week.” Awesome!

Sheila Ogle of The Matthews House and MRPP shot back another note right away, voicing her support and saying she’d spread the word to all the downtown merchants she knows through the Heart of Cary Association.

Here at CaryCitizen, we’re going pink, too. And the Cary Chamber is going pink, courtesy of our good friend friend Delancy Carroll.

I’ve even asked the Town of Cary for permission to tie pink ribbons on lamp posts downtown. (I haven’t heard back yet, but I’ll keep you posted. )

Ways You Can Show Support

Here are some ideas for you to pinkify your business to support this year’s Triangle Race for the Cure:

• Tie pink ribbons or a pink bow to the front door of your business.
• Display a Komen race poster (just email me to get one) or distribute race information for the cause.
• Have your employees wear pink one day (make sure you take a picture and send it to me).
• Restaurants could print their menus on pink paper. They could offer a special pink drink (how about a ta-ta-tini?) to celebrate the cause.
• Employees could create their own Komen team to enter the race.
• Businesses can offer a discount to customers who arrive wearing pink one day.
• Replace your night light bulbs with pink ones, so that your storefront will glow softly pink through the night. (Oh, I’d love to see that all along Chatham Street.)

Share Your Pink

Remember, if you’re going to pink it up to raise awareness for the cause, you have to let me know. Take a picture and send it to me. I want everyone who reads CaryCitizen to know that you are a good corporate citizen and that you care about helping fund research into this disease.

Be sure to send this post to anyone you know in Cary who has a business or service and who would be willing to make Cary a sea of pink June 6 to 12.

Now, if you see me out and about that week, I will likely be sporting my PSCs. Raising awareness for breast cancer research by wearing my PSCs is a style statement that goes with everything.

Let me know what’s up with your pink, brenda.larson@carycitizen.com.

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