Partners in Educating Young Women About Breast Cancer
This partnership began in 2000 with the co-conceptualization of the Young Women’s Initiative, a multifaceted mission and approach to educate young women and other audiences about breast cancer awareness, risks and early detection. Today this powerful initiative is the foundation for all programs supported and created by the Val Skinner Foundation. The primary fundraising vehicle for the Val Skinner Foundation, the LIFE (LPGA Pros in the Fight to Eradicate Breast Cancer) Event has raised more than $6 million for beneficiaries/Young Women’s Initiative partners CINJ and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. This event has channeled more than $3 million toward CINJ-developed breast cancer programs such as the LIFE Center, founded in 2002, to study unique cancer causes, identify novel risk factors and develop effective preventative strategies for young women at risk for breast cancer. The LIFE Center has since expanded to five satellite centers across the Garden State. LIFE also continues to support CINJ’s post-doctoral LIFE Fellowship and the breast cancer curriculum program, designed for high school biology classes, that teaches an understanding of genetics using breast cancer as the context. As these powerful programs continue to grow, so does the LIFE effort. Two LIFE events are scheduled this year, the LIFE Event in Paramus in May and a new LIFE in the South Event in Hilton Head in September. These events mark what’s being called the LIFE Event series. Both will raise a million dollars this year that will fund LIFE programs and extend these programs to the South Carolina area and school system. The driving force behind the Young Women’s Initiative and the programs from CINJ that are changing the perception of breast cancer in the minds of young women are LIFE partners: the Joe Plumeri Family, Merrill Lynch, Emblem Health, Guy Carpenter, QualCare, Roche, Mildred Wood, Jean Ladd, Margo Hyde, Newell and Martha Bolton, Edgar and Marjorie Backlund and Libby Cherrington. Notable contributors, Assured Guaranty, Commerce Bank, The ACE Group and Johnson & Johnson, also champion the LIFE Event and its mission. With the support of such partners, LPGA pros in the fight and committed experts from the CINJ and LIFE Events, the Young Women’s Initiative will continue to fiercely fuel breast cancer awareness and proactive breast health practices, and fund research that will someday find a breast cancer cure.
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For more than eight years, The Cancer Institute of New Jersey has partnered with LPGA veteran and six-time tour winner Val Skinner, and the