Breast-cancer project seeks help for craft

Special to the Enterprise

(Published Aug. 18, 2000)

 

While many athletes are training for the Olympic trials in Sydney, Australia, there's an Olympic trial of sorts in Davis.

 

It's The Olympics of pink crystal pin-making to raise money for breast-cancer awareness.

 

The Wall of Hope Breast Cancer Survivors' Project needs the public's help in creating pink crystal pins to raise money for breast cancer awareness.

 

The project has won the support of Land's End Inc. of Dodgeville, Wis., after the company discovered the project on the Internet last year.

 

Land's End has place an initial order for 500 of the handmade Austrian crystal breast cancer pins that will be sold through the Company's Internet site, www.landsend.com, beginning Oct. 1.

 

The totally handmade piece requires many painstaking steps to achieve the finished product.

 

The Wall of Hope is reaching out to the community for assistance because the deadline to produce the pins is Sept. 22, just six weeks away. This is the largest order the Wall of Hope has ever received for its exclusive pin and represents funds which will go toward the project's national expansion.

 

There is an immediate need for sewers, gluers, and packagers. Marilyn Gayler Axelrod, president and founder of the project, will be holding pin parties to teach volunteers the various steps in the pin-making process. Volunteers will then have a choice of jobs they would like to fill.

 

Soroptimist International of Davis held the first pin party on Tuesday. 

 

Anyone who is interested in assisting with this project is invited to call the Wall of Hope offices at 753-5229, or send an e-mail to wallofhope@mother.com.

 

The Wall of Hope is completing the California section of the exhibit and is piloting the program in other states, with the goal of each state licensing the project to allow the production of a section 100 feet long.

 

The ultimate goal is for all the states to come together with a mile-long showing in Washington, D.C. called the "Mile of Survival."

 

The California Wall is now at 174 feet, carrying approximately 1,300 breast-cancer survivors' pictures. It's completed length will be 200 feet, with 100 feet representing Northern California and 100 feet, Southern California. 

 

When assembled at the nation's capital, the exhibit will carry more than 37,000 portraits of breast-cancer survivors.

 

The Davis Enterprise Website