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Behind the Scenes of Cancer Survivor Beauty and Support Day

CT: How did you get salon franchises and beauty schools involved in your cause as well?

BP: The first 3 years this spa day was held at a local beauty salon in Highland Park called Femmes Salon and on the fourth year I got 9 salons to participate in the event. In the fifth year, I contacted everyone I knew in Illinois and asked them to send me their phone book. I personally went through all those phone books and found a lot of hair salons called Great Clips.

I ended up speaking with their co-op president and he was inspired by the idea and contacted all the Great Clips in Illinois and encouraged them to participate in the event as well. From there on, Pivot Point Academy, the largest beauty academy in the world with 250 affiliates became involved as well. Marinello’s Beauty school and Empire Beauty School have gotten on board as well.

It is more difficult getting in contact with high end beauty shops but I feel they will get on board soon enough. The salons all offer different services at different times and it doesn’t matter as long as they all offer something to show their support.

CT: What sort of publicity or fundraising do you do for the event?

BP: I do absolutely no fundraising for this event. Cancer is very expensive and I think it’s very important to do as much as we can and make it complimentary. Although I do all my publicity for the event myself, I have recently teamed up with Stand Up 2 Cancer and they’ve utilized their volunteers to publicize the event as well. I’m on the computer and on the phone everyday. No one else will have the passion in their voice so I dedicate myself to this everyday.

CT: What’s the next step?

BP: Honestly, the sky is the limit. Around the fourth year of the event, I realized that I would have to get more aggressive with my strategies to gain awareness of this event. I reached out to a member on the Highland Park Council asking for her political advice. She soon became my mentor and helped a resolution and proclamation passed in Illinois.

I have recently been trying to get Resolution 494 passed in Congress to have the first Tuesday recognized as national Cancer Survivor Beauty and Support Day.

And in terms of participants, we have more and more salons getting involved in the event everyday but they aren’t listed on the website. We have finally achieved having all 50 states participating and after this interview I will be contacting a salon in Puerto Rico that was interested in taking part in the event so we’ll go far as we can.

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By Collette Torunyan for PeterGreenberg.com