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SARAH CAVACINI/Palatka Daily News – Pink Out Putnam members hand over a $20,000 check to the Putnam First Cancer Fund last week.
A breast cancer awareness organization donated the largest check amount in the group’s history to the Cancer Center of Putnam.
On Thursday, Pink Out Putnam members presented Dr. Anand Kuruvilla with a $20,000 check to benefit the Putnam First Cancer Fund, which helps county residents diagnosed with cancer pay their bills and other expenses.
The funds benefit people who can’t afford biopsies or ultrasounds or who might need help paying their bills while undergoing cancer treatments, Kuruvilla said. The money assists anyone suffering from cancer, not just breast cancer patients, according to a summary of expenditures from the Putnam First Cancer Fund.
“The criteria is (they) have to be a Putnam County resident,” Kuruvilla said. “He or she does not have to be insured. Anyone can refer the patient. In other words, we remove the barriers for referrals.”
Pink Out Putnam has been raising money for cancer awareness for several years. Kuruvilla said the women who are part of the organization work hard every year to donate, which helps ease the treatment process for many Putnam residents.
“The remarkable thing is that these ladies from different parts of the county initiated and spearheaded this effort, so I think that’s huge,” he said.
Pink Out Putnam wasn’t the only organization helping this year. The Palatka Junior-Senior High School cheerleading squad raised $6,000 to donate to the Cancer Center on Thursday.
The squad gifted the money in memory of Tabitha Collier, a former Palatka High cheerleader and graduate who died of breast cancer in August, said cheer mom and organizer Jini Robbins.
The cheerleaders raised much of the funds by selling shirts that read “Tackle Breast Cancer” on the front and “#praylikebay” on the back in honor of former Palatka High cheerleader and 11th grader Baylee Holbrook, who died in September.
Robbins said the team had already planned to sell the shirts to raise money for breast cancer awareness, but the day they found out Holbrook had passed, she and other organizers contacted Atomic Tees in Palatka and told the owner to stop printing.
The owner of Atomic Tees immediately helped Robbins add “#praylikebay” on the back of the shirts in Holbrook’s honor, she said.
“We said what we’ll do is … we’ll sell the shirts, and whatever we sell, all of it will go back to the Cancer Center,” Robbins said.
From Aug. 1 to Nov. 30, the Cancer Fund helped 11 residents and paid for $10,101 worth of services, according to an expense summary. The patients the Cancer Fund has assisted in just three months range in age from 29 to 82, the documents show.
The fund has paid for transportation for chemotherapy treatment, follow-up consultations, MRIs and household bills.
“Nobody does this anywhere in the … world,” Kuruvilla said. “It is really, really an amazing program.”
