After finding out wear it pink would fall on her birthday, Gillian asked friends and family to take part in a ‘pink’ dip in the Scottish sea, to raise funds and awareness.
Raising breast cancer awareness has always been important to me
I couldn’t believe it when I found out that wear it pink 2022 would fall on my birthday, almost 3 years after being diagnosed with a primary breast cancer at the age of 40. Luckily, I’d found it early enough and after a mastectomy I now take medication to block my hormones. Early detection really does save lives! Raising awareness has always been important to me, as my Gran also came through it 30 years ago, and she turned 89 recently.
Taking wear it pink to another level
For wear it pink 2021, I made T-shirts and bags to sell, but this year I wanted to do something bigger. My friend Dawn and I started wild sea swimming at the start of the year and decided it would be a great idea to enlist some family and friends to join us in a dip, wearing pink and taking wear it pink to another level! Living on the west coast of Scotland, we knew this would be tough in the middle of October.
The lovely ladies in the wear it pink team sent us some T-shirts and we used the collection box that came in my fundraising pack.
Once I uploaded our event photos to social media, the donations more than doubled
It was really easy to set up a JustGiving page and the more people who joined in, meant more sharing on social media and more donations. Once I uploaded photos of our event to social media, the donations more than doubled. At the time of writing our current total was £2,261, which I am absolutely over the moon with.
Everyone involved had an amazing experience and although it was so cold, we absolutely loved it.
