The Garden City Fire Department and pink fire trucks from the Pink Heals Tour raised over $3000 for the Maurer Foundation on the sunny afternoon of September 19, 2011. The funds will be used to provide breast health seminars to schools, community groups and corporations to help fulfill the Foundation’s mission to prevent breast cancer.
Spirits were high as firemen and volunteers were joined by onlookers who signed the pink fire trucks in memory of loved ones touched by cancer or with their own names as cancer survivors and advocates. Donations were collected by holding out fireman boots painted pink to pedestrians and drivers near busy streets in Mineola and Garden City, NY. Pink balloons and plastic fireman hats were passed out to the children and pink t-shirts and brochures on breast self-examinations were available.
The Tour was part of an annual nationwide campaign by the non-profit organization Guardians of the Ribbon, Inc. This year’s tour takes the group’s 6 pink fire trucks, it’s silver ribbon monument, and “Pink Army” of firefighters, police officers, and community leaders to 50 cities throughout the U.S. The Tour spent one day on Long Island, its first ever since the organization began. Additional Pink Heals Tour fundraising events were held simultaneously in Manhasset and Long Beach benefiting The Manhasset Women’s Coalition Against Breast Cancer and Long Beach Polar Bears, who will be donating their portion of the proceeds to Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Metro New York. The day was capped with a parade at Museum Row in Mitchell Field at 6 pm, featuring all 6 of the pink fire trucks as well as fire trucks from neighboring communities. A proclamation by Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano was presented to Guardians of the Ribbon founder Dave Graybill. Proceeds collected during the day at the Nassau County Firefighters Museum and Education Center will benefit 1 in 9, The Nassau County Women’s Coalition Against Breast Cancer.
