You see, in my early 30’s I was single and living in NYC, working a pretty kickass corporate job, running marathons and pretty much loving life. When I felt a (little) lump in my (little) breast I didn’t think too much of it because, well, frankly I didn’t think too much about breast cancer. It didn’t run in my family so I felt certain it wasn’t something that could happen to me. This feeling of being invincible was reinforced by the fact that doctors didn’t notice the lump during my annual exams. Well, not until I brought it too their attention by placing their hand directly on the area of suspicion. Then they felt it, but showed little concern. “See, I knew it was nothing,” I thought. “Even the doctors said so.”
Long story short, it was something. Two years later, following a mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy at the suggestion of a nurse practitioner/angel, I learned that I wasn’t invincible afterall. I was 33 and I had breast cancer. No way! “So now what?” I thought. “I was planning on finding prince charming, getting married, having babies and living happily ever after. This breast cancer thing is really screwing the plan up.”
Sharing my story through Feel Your Boobies®.
That was April 2004 and I can remember it like it was yesterday. Soon after my diagnosis I realized that the only way my lump was detected was because I was “feeling my boobies.” The doctors didn’t feel it and I was too young for mammograms so it really was a situation that I need to take into my own hands, literally. Even though I didn’t do traditional self-breast exams I still knew when something felt different. I wanted to make sure other young women were ‘feeling their boobies’ too!
So I enlisted a couple of friends to help me make some fun t-shirts for my friends and designed the “feel your boobies” logo. I wanted to remind everyone about an action that had saved my life, but I wanted the message to be fun and lighthearted. I initially bought 100 shirts, put up a one-page website, and the rest is history.
7 years later, what started as a fun t-shirt project has evolved into an international non-profit media campaign that runs out of my little pink garage in Central Pennsylvania. The mission of the Feel Your Boobies Foundation is to utilize unexpected and unconventional methods to remind young women to “feel their boobies.” With a background in media strategy and technology design, I decided that using new media (like social media) was a great way to make the message interactive and friendly. I also believed that the key was to identify ways to put this reminder is places where you wouldn’t normally expect to see it and maybe we could get their attention. From that our guiding principle was born, “A friendly reminder when you least expect it.”
As the campaign has grown, operations have gone from my retired parents doing all of the packing and shipping to today where I have three workers to help manage the volume of orders and requests we get through our website. We still operate out of my little pink garage in Pennsylvania (aka Boobies Central) and have been able to reach over 2 million followers on Facebook with our campaign, which makes us one of the Top 30 largest charities on Facebook. And we’re proud that we’re more than just a funny slogan, we actually promote and ACTION that can save your life. Just check out our testimonials from young women who credit our campaign with the reason they found their own breast cancer.
Like what we’re doing?
The Feel Your Boobies Foundation is funded through donations and merchandise sales through our website. (Check out our STUFF). 100% of all donations and sales are used to help us continue to create cool media campaigns to remind the younger audience to be proactive with their breast health.
Each October, we also host National Feel Your Boobies Week, where we use a creative technology solution to allow people to interact with and share our campaign. This year's promotion is a Remind-A-Thon on Twitter and our goal is to remind 1 million people to "feel their boobies" during Nat'l Feel Your Boobies Week (Oct. 14-21). Check out this video to find out more.
Feel Your Boobies! Are You Doing It?
Learn more about the Feel Your Boobies campaign
Read more about Leigh's Say Something Big Speaking Series
October is my Birthday Month as well as celebrating my 50th birthday, I am celebrating surviving Breast Cancer twice when I was 39 & recently when I was 47....check yourself frequently, I found mine...Take Care of yourself ladies, there is no one like you! xo ;)
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