Trees at Alexander Sinton Secondary School sported wrappings of bright pink fabric last Monday to fight cancer.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and every year, Pink Trees for Pauline – a non-profit company – wraps trees in bright pink material to raise awareness about the disease.
The campaign started in 2012 when Pink Tress for Pauline founder Carol Ann van Jaarsveld dedicated the project to her mother and grandmother, both named Pauline, who died of cancer.
The fabric for the trees was given to participating organisations by Pink Trees for Pauline to sell. The proceeds are donated to cancer causes, including the Eikehof Care Home in Athlone.
The material can be bought from the home for R60 for 4m and is big enough to cover two trees. Breast cancer survivors and their families together with pupils wrapped six trees at Alexander Sinton Secondary School in Crawford and 20 trees at the Kromboom Road Park in Athlone were also wrapped on Monday October 7.
Eikehof Care Home committee member Roshen Rajie, who survived ovarian, colon, rectal, oesophagus, brain, and mouth cancer, was part of the tree-wrapping at the school. She said the more people who bought the material the more trees could be covered.
She joined the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA) in 2009 to help others who had also been diagnosed with cancer.
“Cancer won’t take my smile away. I have lots of friends that support me, especially our cancer survivors and cancer associations. They give me hope and so do all the young children fighting the same battle,” she said.
Grade 9 Alexander Sinton pupil Ghusnaa Fakier and her five friends assisted with the wrapping of the trees.
She and friends have been making pink ribbons to raise awareness about breast cancer and money for Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. So far they have raised R1 920. Their goal is R2 400.
“We hope that more schools will join in, and we want to show that we are here to support all cancer survivors and we really admire them,” she said.