Looking Forward to Seeing Pink in October

I was sitting in a beautiful conference room when a young woman in her thirties sharing her cancer story with the audience. She was part of a speaker series to lift women up in business. Her smile and positive energy was inspiring. As she shared her personal story of being diagnosed with breast cancer in her early twenties only to find out she also had cancer in a couple other parts of her body, the room got quiet. As the story progressed, we learned she beat the cancer diagnosis and started a company called Positively Pink Packages. Her organization takes the best information, coping tools and comfort aides and puts them all in one place for newly diagnosed breast cancer patients around Central New York.

I have met many amazing women in my two decade career as a woman entrepreneur, but Jennifer Tom Founder of Positively Pink Packages, was extra special. There is something so welcoming in who she is and what her organization provides. Jennifer shared the statistic that one in four women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. I didn’t know anyone diagnosed with breast cancer until I met Jennifer; but every year since women have told me they were just diagnosed, recovering or back in an active state of the disease. Since I serve women, it has been more of a priority to share Positively Pink Packages’ services and to support breast cancer awareness. One woman diagnosed with breast cancer is too many, but knowing four women every year who are diagnosed is startling.

An NFL football with the Breast Cancer Awareness Month logo sits on the field during an NFL football game between the Cleveland Browns and the Denver Broncos(AP Photo/David Richard)